Manzana Kempiski, lujo entre ruinas
ADRIANA ZAMORA | La Habana | 3 de Junio de 2017 - 05:09 CEST.
A pocos días de su apertura, el hotel Manzana Kempiski ya recibió sus
primeros huéspedes. La inauguración oficial está programada para los
días 7 y 8 de junio, según informan los trabajadores del establecimiento.
"Se puede reservar ya aquí mismo, en persona, o por internet", explica
una de las empleadas vestida de rojo y negro en la carpeta. "El pago
podrá ser en efectivo o por tarjeta".
Como era de esperar, la mayoría de los cubanos ni siquiera sueñan con
poder alojarse en el hotel, donde la habitación más barata cuesta más de
400 CUC la noche y, la más cara, más de 1.300.
Para Elsa, trabajadora de turismo, los precios no están tan altos como
esperaba.
"Si te pones a ver, la diferencia no es tanta con los demás hoteles",
opina. "En otros, como el Telégrafo que queda enfrente, o cualquiera de
La Habana Vieja, la habitación matrimonial cuesta casi 300 CUC. Es casi
lo mismo, pero el Manzana tiene un lujo que no tienen los demás".
Luisa, trabajadora estatal, ve las cosas desde otra perspectiva: "Si no
tengo para comprar el aceite del mes, te imaginarás que para mí ese
hotel es como si fuera un museo", dice.
Los habaneros ya venían haciendo comentarios similares desde hace unos
días, en cuanto abrieron las tiendas ubicadas en la primera planta del
hotel.
"Corre a comprar un tinte en la perfumería", bromea una muchacha. "Valen
tres CUC y pico y es lo único que vas a poder comprar en tu vida en esas
tiendas".
Frente a la tienda llamada Malecón, una mujer le explica a dos turistas
asiáticos: "Es para extranjeros con dinero, porque muy pocos cubanos
tienen para comprar algo aquí".
Se podría decir que ningún cubano corriente accederá a los productos de
Malecón, donde unas sandalias de tacón de Prada cuestan 1.119,95 CUC y
lo más barato son unos monederos de Valentino por 37 CUC cada uno.
En Casa Blanca, la perfumería, es cierto que lo único que podrá comprar
la mujer cubana es el mencionado tinte, porque a nadie se le ocurre que
las clientas accederán en masa al perfume cuya propaganda está sobre el
mostrador ( Sí, de Giorgio Armani, por 131,95 CUC) o a unas gafas de sol
de Moschino por 83,95.
La tienda Fotoestilo es un museo de productos que los cubanos no pueden
tener. Aparte de unos "adornos" con la foto del Che impresa (la única
alusión remota al comunismo en toda la Manzana), los precios de las
cámaras y accesorios que se venden allí no dejan lugar a sueños. La más
barata es una Nikon de 1.672 CUC y la más cara una Leica que cuesta
8.180 CUC, más que algunas viviendas.
"Con ese dinero me compro un cuartico y resuelvo mi problema", comenta
un hombre frente a una llamativa Canon de 7.524 CUC.
En la tienda de L'Occitane en Provence una crema de 50 ml cuesta 47 CUC
y en la de Lacoste ningún producto baja de los 50.
"Habrá alguna persona que compre, pero la mayoría vienen a mirar",
admite la dependienta de una de las tiendas. "Por aquí ha pasado
cantidad de gente que se insulta con los precios y comenta que para
construir esto sí hay dinero, pero para arreglar sus casas nunca hay nada".
Un entorno en ruinas
A una cuadra del flamante hotel Manzana Kempiski, en la pared trasera
del destartalado cine Payret, un grafiti recuerda el estado de las
viviendas en La Habana. Consiste en una casita, dibujada al estilo
infantil, pero de cabeza. El techo puntiagudo hacia abajo es una llamada
de atención hacia el precario estado en que viven los cubanos.
"En La Habana Vieja hay un montón de casas cayéndose en pedazos", dice
Vivian, vecina de San Isidro. "No solo en mi barrio, que está más
alejado del hotel, también cerquita. La misma casa que está al lado,
frente al parque Albear, da pena".
Con motivo de la inauguración del hotel los parques circundantes han
sufrido cambios. En el Parque Central fueron eliminados árboles y
vegetación como si molestaran. El pequeño Parque Albear, a la entrada de
Obispo, fue levantado en peso. No solo se derribaron los árboles bajo
los que se sentaban los habaneros para conectarse en la WiFi del
Floridita, también se están cambiando las aceras y los muros de los
parterres.
"Los árboles estaban podridos", justifica un trabajador de Puerto
Carena. "Vamos a arreglarlo todo y sembrar árboles nuevos".
También el tránsito de la zona ha sido modificado. Se eliminaron paradas
de ómnibus en el Parque Central y el punto de recogida de los taxis
particulares de Alamar, que se encontraba allí desde hace años. Ahora
ningún vehículo, ni estatal ni privado, puede estacionarse para dejar
pasajeros.
El número de policías en la zona se ha incrementado, no solo hay más en
Obispo y O'Reilly, sino que hasta se puede ver un camión de la PNR
parqueado indefinidamente frente al parque Albear.
Todo este esfuerzo por modificar el área que circunda al hotel no se ha
extendido a las viviendas de los habaneros, que siguen teniendo los
mismos problemas constructivos de siempre.
Al mismo lado del parque Albear, el edificio que queda justo frente a
los balcones del hotel sigue con sus precarias celosías de ladrillos y
sus balcones derruidos. Y no es poco común encontrar escombros y basura
de todo tipo en la acera.
Lo que van a ver los huéspedes del Manzana Kempiski cuando salgan a
caminar va a desentonar por completo con el lujo de sus habitaciones.
"Aquí hay casas históricas, como el antiguo Ministerio de Obras
Públicas, del que solo queda la fachada", dice Yunior, vecino de La
Habana Vieja. "Hay edificios que todavía conservan escaleras de mármol,
rodeadas de ruinas. Otros llevan años esperando por reparaciones de la
Oficina del Historiador, apuntalados, pero hasta los puntales están
jorobados del tiempo que hace que los pusieron".
Muchos edificios tienen plantas creciendo en sus fachadas o carecen de
techo en sus habitaciones. Otros han sido tapiados para que no se vean
las ruinas.
Gran cantidad de vecinos viven en casas en peligro de derrumbe. A
algunos, como los de Villegas 5, los techos les han caído encima antes
de que las autoridades lleguen a interesarse por su situación.
"El problema no es que se construyan nuevos hoteles. Eso podría ser algo
muy bueno", opina Elvira, profesora universitaria retirada. El problema
radica en que las inversiones no se hacen con sentido global, sino
lineal. Lo que ganan allí, lo dedican a construir nuevos hoteles, nunca
lo usan para obras sociales. Por eso hay un desfasaje tan grande entre
el desarrollo turístico y el desarrollo social".
"Las casas de nosotros no le importan a nadie", se lamenta otro vecino
de La Habana Vieja. "Están desbaratadas, pero eso es parte del folclor
que le venden a los extranjeros. Lo mismo pasa con los pocos bares de
mala muerte que nos quedan en pesos cubanos, las bodegas y hasta las
farmacias".
En general, cuando se pregunta a los habitantes de La Habana Vieja por
el nuevo hotel, responden con una mueca de desagrado. Y no es un
desagrado dirigido a los inversores extranjeros, sino a un Gobierno que
aprovecha para ganar dinero que no beneficia al cubano de a pie.
"Todo el mundo sabe que las tiendas estas carísimas no son de los dueños
del hotel", apunta Yaimara, estudiante de preuniversitario que pasea por
la tienda Malecón con unas amigas. "Son todas de CIMEX y eso es del Estado".
Este dato lo confirman los propios dependientes: "Somos trabajadores
estatales como cualquier otro y nos pagan en pesos cubanos, la misma
porquería que a cualquiera", dice una empleada que pide no ser identificada.
Hasta los transeúntes que recorren las calles habaneras identifican el
lujoso hotel con una obra más del Gobierno.
"Esto es un logro de la Revolución", ironiza un hombre en la placita que
separa el Manzana Kempiski del Museo de Bellas Artes. "Primero
convirtieron los cuarteles en escuelas y ahora las escuelas en hoteles
de cinco estrellas".
Uno de esos locos habaneros que recorren la ciudad, cargado de jabas con
contenido no identificable y mal vestido, ve a unos turistas sacando
fotos al edificio y les pregunta: "¿Qué, tirándole fotos al hotel de
Castro?"
Source: Manzana Kempiski, lujo entre ruinas | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1496256507_31546.html
sábado, 3 de junio de 2017
Las preocupaciones de la ministra de Educación
Las preocupaciones de la ministra de Educación
ORLANDO FREIRE SANTANA | La Habana | 3 de Junio de 2017 - 05:12 CEST.
En días pasados sesionó en un teatro habanero el Consejo Nacional de la
Federación Estudiantil de la Enseñanza Media (FEEM). Entre las
personalidades que acompañaron a los 165 estudiantes que componen el
Consejo Nacional estuvo la ministra de Educación, Ena Elsa Velázquez
Cobiella.
La funcionaria centró su intervención en el cónclave en tres aspectos
fundamentales: los resultados de la primera convocatoria a las pruebas
de ingreso a la Universidad; los alumnos del grado 12 que no se
presentan a las referidas pruebas; y la necesidad de incrementar el
ingreso a las carreras pedagógicas.
No obstante informar que había mejorado el índice de aprobados en las
pruebas de ingreso a los estudios superiores —que incluye las
asignaturas de Matemática, Español e Historia de Cuba—, la ministra
expresó que "en la asignatura de Historia se está lejos de lo que se
quiere alcanzar".
Para muchos, el interés de la señora Ena Elsa de que mejoren los
resultados en la asignatura Historia de Cuba no se relaciona tanto con
que más estudiantes puedan acceder a la educación superior, sino con la
posibilidad de que un mayor número de jóvenes reciban el mensaje
ideológico que dicha asignatura contiene.
Ello es así porque la historiografía castrista aplica al pie de la letra
aquello de que "la Historia es una visión del pasado con ojos del
presente". Es decir, que la interpretación histórica prima sobre la
objetividad de los hechos, y por tanto el pasado se cuenta de forma tal
que justifique el sistema político imperante.
Por otra parte, a la ministra le inquieta que no pocos estudiantes del
último año de la enseñanza preuniversitaria renuncien a realizar las
pruebas de ingreso a la Universidad. Ello tendría más de una
explicación. Por una parte, se mantiene en la sociedad la famosa
"pirámide invertida", un fenómeno por el cual muchas ocupaciones que
demandan menor preparación académica —sobre todo las relacionadas con el
turismo, la inversión extranjera o el emergente sector no estatal de la
economía— reportan más ingresos que cualquier profesión que requiera
nivel superior.
También habría que tomar en cuenta lo complicado que en ocasiones le
resulta a un estudiante acceder a la carrera universitaria de su
preferencia. Se debe llenar una boleta con diez especialidades, y
después las autoridades universitarias otorgan las carreras de acuerdo
con un escalafón y la cantidad de plazas disponibles. Eso significa que
en no pocas ocasiones los estudiantes obtengan carreras que no
satisfagan sus aspiraciones.
Todo lo anterior hace que muchos estudiantes se contenten con alcanzar
el título de bachiller, que es el que se pide para una parte
considerable de los empleos en la Isla, y después busquen alguna
ocupación más ventajosa desde el punto de vista económico.
Y por supuesto que a la señora Velázquez Cobiella le resulta preocupante
el escaso número de graduados de preuniversitario que se deciden por
carreras de perfil pedagógico. En ese sentido, la ministra le hizo un
llamado a la FEEM para que la organización "ayude" a la captación de
estudiantes para las carreras pedagógicas. Al referirse a la escasez de
maestros y profesores que padecen todos los niveles de enseñanza, la
alta funcionara aseveró que "este sigue siendo un tema complejo y serio
en no pocos territorios".
Un día después de finalizado el Consejo Nacional, el periódico Juventud
Rebelde (edición del martes 30 de mayo) daba a conocer que para el
próximo curso escolar 2017-2018 el 42% de los graduados de noveno grado
irán a los preuniversitarios, mientras que el restante 58% matriculará
en la educación técnica profesional.
De esta última enseñanza, el 60% estudiará técnico de nivel medio, y el
40% restante tendrá que conformarse con ser obreros calificados. La
novedad consiste en que, entre las plazas de técnico medio, se incluyen
las de profesor de secundaria básica e institutos politécnicos.
Nada, que estamos en presencia de una maniobra de la señora Ena Elsa
Velázquez y compañía en su desesperación por formar nuevos maestros.
Source: Las preocupaciones de la ministra de Educación | Diario de Cuba
- http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1496263134_31550.html
ORLANDO FREIRE SANTANA | La Habana | 3 de Junio de 2017 - 05:12 CEST.
En días pasados sesionó en un teatro habanero el Consejo Nacional de la
Federación Estudiantil de la Enseñanza Media (FEEM). Entre las
personalidades que acompañaron a los 165 estudiantes que componen el
Consejo Nacional estuvo la ministra de Educación, Ena Elsa Velázquez
Cobiella.
La funcionaria centró su intervención en el cónclave en tres aspectos
fundamentales: los resultados de la primera convocatoria a las pruebas
de ingreso a la Universidad; los alumnos del grado 12 que no se
presentan a las referidas pruebas; y la necesidad de incrementar el
ingreso a las carreras pedagógicas.
No obstante informar que había mejorado el índice de aprobados en las
pruebas de ingreso a los estudios superiores —que incluye las
asignaturas de Matemática, Español e Historia de Cuba—, la ministra
expresó que "en la asignatura de Historia se está lejos de lo que se
quiere alcanzar".
Para muchos, el interés de la señora Ena Elsa de que mejoren los
resultados en la asignatura Historia de Cuba no se relaciona tanto con
que más estudiantes puedan acceder a la educación superior, sino con la
posibilidad de que un mayor número de jóvenes reciban el mensaje
ideológico que dicha asignatura contiene.
Ello es así porque la historiografía castrista aplica al pie de la letra
aquello de que "la Historia es una visión del pasado con ojos del
presente". Es decir, que la interpretación histórica prima sobre la
objetividad de los hechos, y por tanto el pasado se cuenta de forma tal
que justifique el sistema político imperante.
Por otra parte, a la ministra le inquieta que no pocos estudiantes del
último año de la enseñanza preuniversitaria renuncien a realizar las
pruebas de ingreso a la Universidad. Ello tendría más de una
explicación. Por una parte, se mantiene en la sociedad la famosa
"pirámide invertida", un fenómeno por el cual muchas ocupaciones que
demandan menor preparación académica —sobre todo las relacionadas con el
turismo, la inversión extranjera o el emergente sector no estatal de la
economía— reportan más ingresos que cualquier profesión que requiera
nivel superior.
También habría que tomar en cuenta lo complicado que en ocasiones le
resulta a un estudiante acceder a la carrera universitaria de su
preferencia. Se debe llenar una boleta con diez especialidades, y
después las autoridades universitarias otorgan las carreras de acuerdo
con un escalafón y la cantidad de plazas disponibles. Eso significa que
en no pocas ocasiones los estudiantes obtengan carreras que no
satisfagan sus aspiraciones.
Todo lo anterior hace que muchos estudiantes se contenten con alcanzar
el título de bachiller, que es el que se pide para una parte
considerable de los empleos en la Isla, y después busquen alguna
ocupación más ventajosa desde el punto de vista económico.
Y por supuesto que a la señora Velázquez Cobiella le resulta preocupante
el escaso número de graduados de preuniversitario que se deciden por
carreras de perfil pedagógico. En ese sentido, la ministra le hizo un
llamado a la FEEM para que la organización "ayude" a la captación de
estudiantes para las carreras pedagógicas. Al referirse a la escasez de
maestros y profesores que padecen todos los niveles de enseñanza, la
alta funcionara aseveró que "este sigue siendo un tema complejo y serio
en no pocos territorios".
Un día después de finalizado el Consejo Nacional, el periódico Juventud
Rebelde (edición del martes 30 de mayo) daba a conocer que para el
próximo curso escolar 2017-2018 el 42% de los graduados de noveno grado
irán a los preuniversitarios, mientras que el restante 58% matriculará
en la educación técnica profesional.
De esta última enseñanza, el 60% estudiará técnico de nivel medio, y el
40% restante tendrá que conformarse con ser obreros calificados. La
novedad consiste en que, entre las plazas de técnico medio, se incluyen
las de profesor de secundaria básica e institutos politécnicos.
Nada, que estamos en presencia de una maniobra de la señora Ena Elsa
Velázquez y compañía en su desesperación por formar nuevos maestros.
Source: Las preocupaciones de la ministra de Educación | Diario de Cuba
- http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1496263134_31550.html
Chefs internacionales van a la Isla a promover una cocina 'exótica y apetitosa'
Chefs internacionales van a la Isla a promover una cocina 'exótica y
apetitosa'
AGENCIAS | La Habana | 2 de Junio de 2017 - 23:06 CEST.
Cocineros y sumilleres de España, Estados Unidos, México, Perú y
República Dominicana inspirarán y actualizarán a sus pares cubanos sobre
las últimas tendencias gastronómicas en un seminario, del 7 al 9 de
junio en La Habana, que busca promover una Cuba "exótica y apetitosa".
Según reporta EFE, entre los más de 300 participantes en el evento,
organizado por el grupo español Excelencias, destacan la mexicana Elena
Reygadas, mejor chef femenina de Latinoamérica en 2014; la cocinera
española Charo Val, el sumiller Javier Gila y el barista Alberto
Pizarro, ambos entre los mejores de su especialidad en España.
Viajarán también a la capital cubana Cristina Vallarino, la catadora de
vinos más reconocida de Perú, quien dirigirá el primer maridaje del
tradicional pisco peruano con puros habanos; y el prestigioso chef
Hiroyuki Terada, que utilizará productos autóctonos de la Isla para
crear una interesante fusión con el sushi japonés.
También asistirán el secretario general de la Academia Iberoamericana de
Gastronomía, Alfonso Marín, y el presidente continental de la Asociación
Mundial de Chefs (Worldchef).
"La idea es trasmitir las últimas tendencias de la gastronomía mundial
al tiempo que se hablará muy en serio del rescate y el uso del rico
patrimonio culinario que tenemos en Cuba", dijo a la prensa Patricia
Cáceres, editora de la revista Excelencias Gourmet y presidenta del
Comité Organizador del seminario.
Según Cáceres, la intención de esta séptima edición del evento es
ofrecer asistencia sobre cómo resolver errores comunes en la gestión de
un restaurante y rentabilizar un negocio utilizando nuevas tecnologías.
Agregó que además de promover el diálogo, buscan dar a conocer la labor
de cocineros y restauradores cubanos en establecimientos estatales,
hoteles y restaurantes privados o "paladares", de los que se conocerán
varias experiencias de primera mano.
En los últimos años, tras aprobarse en Cuba algunas formas de trabajo
autónomo, se han multiplicado los "paladares", que hoy suman unos 2.000
en todo el país.
El programa de la cita, que tendrá lugar en el Hotel Meliá Cohíba,
incluye clases magistrales, espectáculos de cocina, catas y una
celebración por los 20 años de presencia del grupo Excelencias en la Isla.
A principios de abril la Asociación Mundial de Sociedades De Chefs
(WorldChefs) declaró la cocina cubana Patrimonio Inmaterial del mundo.
Source: Chefs internacionales van a la Isla a promover una cocina
'exótica y apetitosa' | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1496437560_31612.html
apetitosa'
AGENCIAS | La Habana | 2 de Junio de 2017 - 23:06 CEST.
Cocineros y sumilleres de España, Estados Unidos, México, Perú y
República Dominicana inspirarán y actualizarán a sus pares cubanos sobre
las últimas tendencias gastronómicas en un seminario, del 7 al 9 de
junio en La Habana, que busca promover una Cuba "exótica y apetitosa".
Según reporta EFE, entre los más de 300 participantes en el evento,
organizado por el grupo español Excelencias, destacan la mexicana Elena
Reygadas, mejor chef femenina de Latinoamérica en 2014; la cocinera
española Charo Val, el sumiller Javier Gila y el barista Alberto
Pizarro, ambos entre los mejores de su especialidad en España.
Viajarán también a la capital cubana Cristina Vallarino, la catadora de
vinos más reconocida de Perú, quien dirigirá el primer maridaje del
tradicional pisco peruano con puros habanos; y el prestigioso chef
Hiroyuki Terada, que utilizará productos autóctonos de la Isla para
crear una interesante fusión con el sushi japonés.
También asistirán el secretario general de la Academia Iberoamericana de
Gastronomía, Alfonso Marín, y el presidente continental de la Asociación
Mundial de Chefs (Worldchef).
"La idea es trasmitir las últimas tendencias de la gastronomía mundial
al tiempo que se hablará muy en serio del rescate y el uso del rico
patrimonio culinario que tenemos en Cuba", dijo a la prensa Patricia
Cáceres, editora de la revista Excelencias Gourmet y presidenta del
Comité Organizador del seminario.
Según Cáceres, la intención de esta séptima edición del evento es
ofrecer asistencia sobre cómo resolver errores comunes en la gestión de
un restaurante y rentabilizar un negocio utilizando nuevas tecnologías.
Agregó que además de promover el diálogo, buscan dar a conocer la labor
de cocineros y restauradores cubanos en establecimientos estatales,
hoteles y restaurantes privados o "paladares", de los que se conocerán
varias experiencias de primera mano.
En los últimos años, tras aprobarse en Cuba algunas formas de trabajo
autónomo, se han multiplicado los "paladares", que hoy suman unos 2.000
en todo el país.
El programa de la cita, que tendrá lugar en el Hotel Meliá Cohíba,
incluye clases magistrales, espectáculos de cocina, catas y una
celebración por los 20 años de presencia del grupo Excelencias en la Isla.
A principios de abril la Asociación Mundial de Sociedades De Chefs
(WorldChefs) declaró la cocina cubana Patrimonio Inmaterial del mundo.
Source: Chefs internacionales van a la Isla a promover una cocina
'exótica y apetitosa' | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1496437560_31612.html
viernes, 2 de junio de 2017
Vivir en una zona rural y necesitar medicamentos 'es una agonía', se quejan campesinos
Vivir en una zona rural y necesitar medicamentos 'es una agonía', se
quejan campesinos
ELIECER PALMA PUPO | San Germán | 2 de Junio de 2017 - 17:31 CEST.
"Vivir en una zona rural y padecer tres enfermedades, de ellas dos
crónicas, es una agonía", dice Zenaida Martínez Gil, residente en el
barrio La Cuba, a 35 kilómetros del municipio San Germán, Holguín.
A las dificultades para trasladarse a hospitales y centros de atención
en los pueblos y ciudades, se ha sumado la creciente escasez de
medicamentos, que para muchos es ya un problema grave.
"Llevo alrededor de 15 años padeciendo fuertes dolores en la cervical;
ya me dijo el médico que no tiene cura. La gastritis la adquirí por la
cantidad de pastillas que tenía que tomar diariamente, sobre todo para
la hipertensión arterial, que con esa no se juega. En estos momentos el
problema es que no logro alcanzar los medicamentos cuando llegan a la
farmacia, a pesar de contar con un tarjetón", añade Martínez Gil.
El tarjetón, que al principio garantizaba las medicinas a los pacientes
que dependen de ellas, "en la actualidad no me sirve de nada", se queja
Martínez Gil. "Cuando logro llegar a la farmacia, la dependienta me dice
'este no hay, este tampoco y el otro lleva tiempo en falta'", añade la
mujer, y menciona entre los fármacos que necesita el Corinfar, el
Tramadol y la Ranitidina. "Ya estoy haciendo gestiones para comprarlos
por la izquierda, como me aconsejó una vecina", admite.
Raúl Pupo Pupo, de 60 años de edad y residente del barrio Cauto 3, a 13
kilómetros de San Germán, lleva 15 meses de certificado médico debido a
un nódulo prostático. "Para eso debo tomar Terazosina, indicada por el
médico. También tengo artrosis crónica en la columna. Los medicamentos
que necesito son por tarjetón, pero imagina, en este país todo lo que
hay lo mandan a otras partes, fuera de Cuba", opina.
El Gobierno ha reconocido la falta de medicamentos citando como
justificación el retraso en la llegada de materias primas para
producirlos, pero no ha dicho cuándo se estabilizará la situación.
"Apenas puedo pararme de la cama", afirma Ramona Pupo Sarmiento, de 66
años. "Tengo hemorroides crónicas y no pueden operarme. También tengo
una hernia desarrollada cerca de la hemorroide y tampoco pueden
operarla, y además padezco osteoporosis", detalla.
"Gracias a un amigo que es médico, mi hijo me consiguió un turno en
Holguín, pero no pude ir por falta de transporte. Con todos los
problemas que tenemos que enfrentar en este lugar, es para no tener
deseos de vivir. Además, no tengo a nadie que pueda mandarme de afuera
algún medicamento que sustituya los que debo tomar, que son el Tramadol,
la Proctocaína y el Venatón", concluye.
Una farmacéutica alerta que la situación de los medicamentos básicos
podría empeorar, aunque la cantidad que llega a la farmacia ya es muy
baja. "No alcanzan y, por eso, aunque nos duela, no podemos guardar para
las zonas rurales", dice.
"Mi carrera es bonita en la escuela, pero cuando chocas con la realidad
se complica", lamenta un médico. "Apenas llevo dos años ejerciendo mi
profesión y lo que me ha tocado vivir no es fácil, sobre todo cuando
estoy de guardia y no cuento con Rayos X, o llamo a la farmacia y no hay
existencia de los principales fármacos, o la ambulancia está rota".
"He tenido que aplicar la medicina verde para resolver algunos
problemas", asegura.
Roberto Morejón Pupo padece de diabetes tipo 2 y no encuentra ni
jeringuillas para ponerse su inyección ni tirillas para medirse el
azúcar en sangre. El obrero agrícola Ángel Luis Márquez, requiere
Captopril, que recibe por el tarjetón, o en su defecto Enalapril para
combatir su hipertensión. Como nunca hay en las farmacias, recurre al
mercado informal.
Desde el "Periodo Especial", el eufemismo que creó el Gobierno para
nombrar la aguda crisis económica de los años 90 del siglo pasado, los
cubanos vieron afectarse severamente el suministro de fármacos.
Paradójicamente, muchos encuentran solución en el mercado, aunque a
precios más elevados, mientras el Gobierno es incapaz de controlar el
tráfico.
Source: Vivir en una zona rural y necesitar medicamentos 'es una
agonía', se quejan campesinos | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1496417480_31601.html
quejan campesinos
ELIECER PALMA PUPO | San Germán | 2 de Junio de 2017 - 17:31 CEST.
"Vivir en una zona rural y padecer tres enfermedades, de ellas dos
crónicas, es una agonía", dice Zenaida Martínez Gil, residente en el
barrio La Cuba, a 35 kilómetros del municipio San Germán, Holguín.
A las dificultades para trasladarse a hospitales y centros de atención
en los pueblos y ciudades, se ha sumado la creciente escasez de
medicamentos, que para muchos es ya un problema grave.
"Llevo alrededor de 15 años padeciendo fuertes dolores en la cervical;
ya me dijo el médico que no tiene cura. La gastritis la adquirí por la
cantidad de pastillas que tenía que tomar diariamente, sobre todo para
la hipertensión arterial, que con esa no se juega. En estos momentos el
problema es que no logro alcanzar los medicamentos cuando llegan a la
farmacia, a pesar de contar con un tarjetón", añade Martínez Gil.
El tarjetón, que al principio garantizaba las medicinas a los pacientes
que dependen de ellas, "en la actualidad no me sirve de nada", se queja
Martínez Gil. "Cuando logro llegar a la farmacia, la dependienta me dice
'este no hay, este tampoco y el otro lleva tiempo en falta'", añade la
mujer, y menciona entre los fármacos que necesita el Corinfar, el
Tramadol y la Ranitidina. "Ya estoy haciendo gestiones para comprarlos
por la izquierda, como me aconsejó una vecina", admite.
Raúl Pupo Pupo, de 60 años de edad y residente del barrio Cauto 3, a 13
kilómetros de San Germán, lleva 15 meses de certificado médico debido a
un nódulo prostático. "Para eso debo tomar Terazosina, indicada por el
médico. También tengo artrosis crónica en la columna. Los medicamentos
que necesito son por tarjetón, pero imagina, en este país todo lo que
hay lo mandan a otras partes, fuera de Cuba", opina.
El Gobierno ha reconocido la falta de medicamentos citando como
justificación el retraso en la llegada de materias primas para
producirlos, pero no ha dicho cuándo se estabilizará la situación.
"Apenas puedo pararme de la cama", afirma Ramona Pupo Sarmiento, de 66
años. "Tengo hemorroides crónicas y no pueden operarme. También tengo
una hernia desarrollada cerca de la hemorroide y tampoco pueden
operarla, y además padezco osteoporosis", detalla.
"Gracias a un amigo que es médico, mi hijo me consiguió un turno en
Holguín, pero no pude ir por falta de transporte. Con todos los
problemas que tenemos que enfrentar en este lugar, es para no tener
deseos de vivir. Además, no tengo a nadie que pueda mandarme de afuera
algún medicamento que sustituya los que debo tomar, que son el Tramadol,
la Proctocaína y el Venatón", concluye.
Una farmacéutica alerta que la situación de los medicamentos básicos
podría empeorar, aunque la cantidad que llega a la farmacia ya es muy
baja. "No alcanzan y, por eso, aunque nos duela, no podemos guardar para
las zonas rurales", dice.
"Mi carrera es bonita en la escuela, pero cuando chocas con la realidad
se complica", lamenta un médico. "Apenas llevo dos años ejerciendo mi
profesión y lo que me ha tocado vivir no es fácil, sobre todo cuando
estoy de guardia y no cuento con Rayos X, o llamo a la farmacia y no hay
existencia de los principales fármacos, o la ambulancia está rota".
"He tenido que aplicar la medicina verde para resolver algunos
problemas", asegura.
Roberto Morejón Pupo padece de diabetes tipo 2 y no encuentra ni
jeringuillas para ponerse su inyección ni tirillas para medirse el
azúcar en sangre. El obrero agrícola Ángel Luis Márquez, requiere
Captopril, que recibe por el tarjetón, o en su defecto Enalapril para
combatir su hipertensión. Como nunca hay en las farmacias, recurre al
mercado informal.
Desde el "Periodo Especial", el eufemismo que creó el Gobierno para
nombrar la aguda crisis económica de los años 90 del siglo pasado, los
cubanos vieron afectarse severamente el suministro de fármacos.
Paradójicamente, muchos encuentran solución en el mercado, aunque a
precios más elevados, mientras el Gobierno es incapaz de controlar el
tráfico.
Source: Vivir en una zona rural y necesitar medicamentos 'es una
agonía', se quejan campesinos | Diario de Cuba -
http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1496417480_31601.html
Carmelo Mesa-Lago: "The Cuban Government Panicked After Obama's Visit"
Carmelo Mesa-Lago: "The Cuban Government Panicked After Obama's Visit"
14ymedio, Maité Rico, Madrid, 1 June 12017 — Carmelo Mesa-Lago (born
Havana, 1934) has spent a good part of his life trying to open a breach
of good sense in the wall of absurdities with which that the Castro
regime has ended up plunging into bankruptcy a country that was, in the
1950s, the third most developed in Latin America after Argentina and
Uruguay.
A Professor Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, he
has just presented in Madrid the only study on the private sector in
Cuba (Voices Of Change In The Cuban Non-State Sector, published by
Iberoamericana-Vervuert), based on interviews with 80 self-employed
individuals.
Armed with the best statistical data, this economist views with
perplexity how the economic reforms announced by Raúl Castro in 2010 are
being diluted ("the Government takes one step forward and four steps
back"), and how the country is losing the opportunity that was offered
to it last year by the reestablishment of bilateral relations with the
United States.
It was precisely Barack Obama's outstretched hand that sowed panic in
the Government, which fears that economic openness will lead to
political change. Now there is a brake on the reforms, there are no
investments, and the crisis in Venezuela, which replaced the USSR as
Cuba's economic supporter, has plunged the country into disaster.
Rico: Is Cuba entering a new "Special Period" [a euphemism to describe
the period of hardship that followed the fall of the USSR and the end of
aid to Cuba]?
Mesa-Lago: The situation is similar, but not so dramatic, because the
dependence on the Soviet Union was much greater than that on
Venezuela. That said, the trade volume with Venezuela has dropped
significantly (from 42% to 27% in 2015) and the supply of oil has
declined from 105,000 barrels a day to 55,000.
Cuba sold a part of that oil in the world market, and it was an
important source of income that has also fallen by half. And another
income that has fallen is the most important one: the sale of
professional services (doctors, nurses, teachers) [to foreign
countries], which went from 11 billion dollars in 2013 to 7 billion. In
2015, GDP growth was 4.4%. In 2016, it was minus 0.9%. Everything points
to a very strong crisis, but I do not think it reaches the level of the
Special Period.
Rico. At least, within this parasitic economy, tourism remains.
Mesa-Lago. There is a boom, for the first time they exceeded four
million tourists and took in about 4 billion dollars. The problem is
that this gross income has to be subtracted from the value of imports of
goods and supplies for tourists. Cuba has to import everything. And that
data is no longer published. So it's not 4 billion. It's less, but we do
not know how much.
Rico. Despite the announcement of the investment plan and Obama's trip,
foreign investment has not materialized and the Special Development
Zone in the Port of Mariel, the big Brazilian bet, is quite inactive.
Mesa-Lago. It is inexplicable. Cuba needs [new investments of] at least
$2.5 billion a year. Until last month there were some 450 proposals for
foreign investment, some of them already established in Cuba. And they
have only approved some twenty of them. According to their figures,
since the opening of the Port of Mariel Special Development Zone the
cumulative figure has not reached 2 billion dollars. Why do they do
this? It does not make sense to me.
Rico. But what can Cuba offer, beyond cheap labor? The system of
production is destroyed.
Mesa-Lago. The infrastructure is a disaster. And the workforce, which is
qualified, works extremely slowly. For the construction of the Manzana
hotel, Kempinski brought workers from India because they were more
productive. The problem is that the Cuban worker earns very little and
is paid in Cuban pesos (CUP), and has to buy most things in convertible
currency (CUC), and they can't support themselves. There is no
incentive, and it is a vicious cycle. Between 1989, the year before the
crisis, and 2015, the purchasing power of Cubans fell by more than 70%.
Rico. And when are they going to solve the problem of the dual-currency
system?
Mesa-Lago. Raul has announced it many times and two years ago made a
very complicated resolution, full of equations. But nothing
happened. The problem is that inflation will be about 12% this year, it
is very high. And the unification of the currency, by itself, generates
inflation. So I find it difficult to see them doing it in the short
term. In addition, they must first do it in the state sector, and there
will be companies that will cease to be sustainable, and then comes the
population. It's going to be a longer process than in Vietnam and
probably in China.
Rico. How many workers has the state fired since the reforms began?
Mesa-Lago. They announced that between 2010 and 2015 they were going to
lay off 1.8 million unnecessary workers, but in the end it was half a
million. The private sector did not advance as rapidly as needed to
create all those jobs, and there would have been a social explosion.
Rico. But why does private activity grow so slowly?
Mesa-Lago. Because of all the obstacles. It is as if the right hand
doesn't know what the left hand is doing. There are many activities that
the Government has closed down or rescinded [the permission for, after
initially granting licenses]: clothing sales, 3D movie theaters … now
they have begun to regulate prices for private taxis and on the sale of
homes, and to interfere in the free agricultural market. Taxation is
brutal. There are something like seven taxes. The Government punishes
those who succeed and who could help the State solve its problems. It is
not logical.…
Rico. And how do you explain it?
Mesa-Lago. The only explanation I have is that in Cuba there is no
unified leadership with a single opinion, but there is a group that
resists. Obama's visit had a very positive impact on the population, but
the government panicked. From there came a a paralysis. The most
hardline group, the most orthodox, came out stronger than ever.
Rico. Are the Armed Forces putting obstacles in the way?
Mesa-Lago. Yes, and the Party, but the Army is more important because it
has economic power. And it has like a reverse Midas touch. Everything it
touches it turns to garbage … Restaurants, hotels … It is impressive.
Rico. The self-employed people interviewed agree on their problems:
scarcity and lack of inputs, regulatory overspending, taxes, difficult
access to the internet …
Mesa-Lago. Yes, and in spite of the continuous obstruction of the State,
80% of them are satisfied with what they do (although not with what they
earn). And 93% made profits, and most reinvested them into their
business. That is extraordinary.
Rico. Will the team in power be able to make the transition?
Mesa-Lago. If Raúl Castro, in ten years, has not pushed the reforms, I
doubt that his successor can be more successful. Political logic
prevails over economic logic. And they fear losing control.
_____
Editorial Note: This article was previously published in the Spanish
newspaper El País and we reproduce it with authorization of the author.
Source: Carmelo Mesa-Lago: "The Cuban Government Panicked After Obama's
Visit" – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/carmelo-mesa-lago-the-cuban-government-panicked-after-obamas-visit/
14ymedio, Maité Rico, Madrid, 1 June 12017 — Carmelo Mesa-Lago (born
Havana, 1934) has spent a good part of his life trying to open a breach
of good sense in the wall of absurdities with which that the Castro
regime has ended up plunging into bankruptcy a country that was, in the
1950s, the third most developed in Latin America after Argentina and
Uruguay.
A Professor Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, he
has just presented in Madrid the only study on the private sector in
Cuba (Voices Of Change In The Cuban Non-State Sector, published by
Iberoamericana-Vervuert), based on interviews with 80 self-employed
individuals.
Armed with the best statistical data, this economist views with
perplexity how the economic reforms announced by Raúl Castro in 2010 are
being diluted ("the Government takes one step forward and four steps
back"), and how the country is losing the opportunity that was offered
to it last year by the reestablishment of bilateral relations with the
United States.
It was precisely Barack Obama's outstretched hand that sowed panic in
the Government, which fears that economic openness will lead to
political change. Now there is a brake on the reforms, there are no
investments, and the crisis in Venezuela, which replaced the USSR as
Cuba's economic supporter, has plunged the country into disaster.
Rico: Is Cuba entering a new "Special Period" [a euphemism to describe
the period of hardship that followed the fall of the USSR and the end of
aid to Cuba]?
Mesa-Lago: The situation is similar, but not so dramatic, because the
dependence on the Soviet Union was much greater than that on
Venezuela. That said, the trade volume with Venezuela has dropped
significantly (from 42% to 27% in 2015) and the supply of oil has
declined from 105,000 barrels a day to 55,000.
Cuba sold a part of that oil in the world market, and it was an
important source of income that has also fallen by half. And another
income that has fallen is the most important one: the sale of
professional services (doctors, nurses, teachers) [to foreign
countries], which went from 11 billion dollars in 2013 to 7 billion. In
2015, GDP growth was 4.4%. In 2016, it was minus 0.9%. Everything points
to a very strong crisis, but I do not think it reaches the level of the
Special Period.
Rico. At least, within this parasitic economy, tourism remains.
Mesa-Lago. There is a boom, for the first time they exceeded four
million tourists and took in about 4 billion dollars. The problem is
that this gross income has to be subtracted from the value of imports of
goods and supplies for tourists. Cuba has to import everything. And that
data is no longer published. So it's not 4 billion. It's less, but we do
not know how much.
Rico. Despite the announcement of the investment plan and Obama's trip,
foreign investment has not materialized and the Special Development
Zone in the Port of Mariel, the big Brazilian bet, is quite inactive.
Mesa-Lago. It is inexplicable. Cuba needs [new investments of] at least
$2.5 billion a year. Until last month there were some 450 proposals for
foreign investment, some of them already established in Cuba. And they
have only approved some twenty of them. According to their figures,
since the opening of the Port of Mariel Special Development Zone the
cumulative figure has not reached 2 billion dollars. Why do they do
this? It does not make sense to me.
Rico. But what can Cuba offer, beyond cheap labor? The system of
production is destroyed.
Mesa-Lago. The infrastructure is a disaster. And the workforce, which is
qualified, works extremely slowly. For the construction of the Manzana
hotel, Kempinski brought workers from India because they were more
productive. The problem is that the Cuban worker earns very little and
is paid in Cuban pesos (CUP), and has to buy most things in convertible
currency (CUC), and they can't support themselves. There is no
incentive, and it is a vicious cycle. Between 1989, the year before the
crisis, and 2015, the purchasing power of Cubans fell by more than 70%.
Rico. And when are they going to solve the problem of the dual-currency
system?
Mesa-Lago. Raul has announced it many times and two years ago made a
very complicated resolution, full of equations. But nothing
happened. The problem is that inflation will be about 12% this year, it
is very high. And the unification of the currency, by itself, generates
inflation. So I find it difficult to see them doing it in the short
term. In addition, they must first do it in the state sector, and there
will be companies that will cease to be sustainable, and then comes the
population. It's going to be a longer process than in Vietnam and
probably in China.
Rico. How many workers has the state fired since the reforms began?
Mesa-Lago. They announced that between 2010 and 2015 they were going to
lay off 1.8 million unnecessary workers, but in the end it was half a
million. The private sector did not advance as rapidly as needed to
create all those jobs, and there would have been a social explosion.
Rico. But why does private activity grow so slowly?
Mesa-Lago. Because of all the obstacles. It is as if the right hand
doesn't know what the left hand is doing. There are many activities that
the Government has closed down or rescinded [the permission for, after
initially granting licenses]: clothing sales, 3D movie theaters … now
they have begun to regulate prices for private taxis and on the sale of
homes, and to interfere in the free agricultural market. Taxation is
brutal. There are something like seven taxes. The Government punishes
those who succeed and who could help the State solve its problems. It is
not logical.…
Rico. And how do you explain it?
Mesa-Lago. The only explanation I have is that in Cuba there is no
unified leadership with a single opinion, but there is a group that
resists. Obama's visit had a very positive impact on the population, but
the government panicked. From there came a a paralysis. The most
hardline group, the most orthodox, came out stronger than ever.
Rico. Are the Armed Forces putting obstacles in the way?
Mesa-Lago. Yes, and the Party, but the Army is more important because it
has economic power. And it has like a reverse Midas touch. Everything it
touches it turns to garbage … Restaurants, hotels … It is impressive.
Rico. The self-employed people interviewed agree on their problems:
scarcity and lack of inputs, regulatory overspending, taxes, difficult
access to the internet …
Mesa-Lago. Yes, and in spite of the continuous obstruction of the State,
80% of them are satisfied with what they do (although not with what they
earn). And 93% made profits, and most reinvested them into their
business. That is extraordinary.
Rico. Will the team in power be able to make the transition?
Mesa-Lago. If Raúl Castro, in ten years, has not pushed the reforms, I
doubt that his successor can be more successful. Political logic
prevails over economic logic. And they fear losing control.
_____
Editorial Note: This article was previously published in the Spanish
newspaper El País and we reproduce it with authorization of the author.
Source: Carmelo Mesa-Lago: "The Cuban Government Panicked After Obama's
Visit" – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/carmelo-mesa-lago-the-cuban-government-panicked-after-obamas-visit/
Danger, Men At Work
Danger, Men At Work
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 29 May 2017 — They call him "Manolo 440"
because a few years ago he had an electrocution accident in a building
under construction. He managed to survive and has since been given the
nickname of the voltage that almost killed him. He was lucky, unlike the
89 people who died in Cuba last year in one of the 11 work accidents
that occur every day on the Island.
Shortly before April 28, World Occupational Safety and Health Day, a
worker painting the façade of the Hotel Plaza in Havana stumbled and
fell two floors onto the street. He had no protective gear but was lucky
and was taken to the hospital.
The United Nations counts 6,300 people who die every day in the world
due to accidents or work-related illnesses. There are more than 317
million work accidents annually. But that data is only a part of it.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has called for eradicating
the practice of "massaging" the numbers and this year is leading an
intensive campaign in which it insists that it is essential for
countries to improve "their ability to collect and use reliable data on
safety and health in Work (SST)."
In Cuba, information on this scourge is rarely addressed in the press,
although in recent years the National Bureau of Statistics and
Information (ONEI) has published some figures. According to this state
agency, in 2016 occupational accidents totaled 3,576 (144 more than in
the previous year). Havana leads the list of provinces with 27 deaths.
The head of the Department of Occupational Safety and Health at the
Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), Angel San Martín Duporté,
said a few weeks ago that "66% of accidents are caused by the poor
conduct of men and women. "
However, workers say the principal causes of work accidents are poor
organization, the chaotic supply of protective gear and measures, and
the incompetence of unions in demanding compliance with safety protocols
as the main causes of workplace accidents.
"These boots were brought to me by a relative from Ecuador," says a
sugarcane cutter at the Majibacoa sugar mill in Las Tunas. The man, who
preferred to be called Ricardo to avoid reprisals, said agricultural
workers in the area are subject to frequent "cuts on their hands and
feet." He says, "the type of footwear matters a lot, because if it is
strong and high the chances of getting cut are smaller."
All those who work alongside Ricardo are dressed in old military
uniforms that were gifts or that they bought in the informal
market. "They do not give us adequate clothes and when it does come the
sizes are too small or too large," the cane cutter complains. "We have
had colleagues who don't even have a hat and have gotten sun stroke,
with dizziness, headaches and even vomiting," he emphasizes.
Clothing and footwear are among the personal protective equipment which
according to the new Labor Code must be supplied free of charge by the
employer. Although an official of the Ministry of Labor and Social
Security clarifies via telephone to this newspaper that "each company
has autonomy to modify those issues."
Damaris, head of a construction brigade located in Central Havana, says
that the workers under her command are "very upset" because now they
have to pay for their work clothes and shoes. Previously, both garments
were "supplied free" but now are "deducted from wages" and in response
the workers are refusing to pay the union dues.
The Government allocates between 20% and 30% of the gross monthly salary
of a construction worker linked to the tourist sector to pay for life
insurance. "When someone is injured, that money is supposed to cover
them, but the truth is that it serves for very little."
An injured worker has the right to receive benefits in services such as
orthopedic appliances and prosthetics, according to Law 105/8 of Social
Security. As far as economic compensation is concerned, they get a total
or partial disability pension which can reach up to 90% of
their salary. In the case of death, the amount goes to the nearest
relatives such as husbands or minor children.
For a person in delicate health, that money barely lasts for a couple of
weeks. "I lost three fingers while working on the railroads," says
Yasiel Ruíz, a transportation technician who now sells churros near a
school in Marianao.
The former state employee would have received a disability payment of
less than the equivalent of 5 Cuban convertible pesos per month (about
$5 US), so he decided to start his own business. "I gave up the
financial compensation because it was more paperwork than benefits. My
family helps me and I have become accustomed to not having those
fingers, but at the beginning it was difficult," he confesses. He claims
that the accident in which he suffered the amputation was caused by "a
failure to close a cattle transfer cage," but he never brought his case
to a labor court.
Decisions like his are repeated over and over again. Vicente A.
Entrialgo León, a lawyer specializing in labor law, recently confirmed
to the official press that in Cuba "there are not a great number of
claims around this issue."
But the danger is not only in the complicated work of construction, the
hard work of the countryside, or the roughness of working on the railroad.
Nuria is afraid of contracting a disease at the polyclinic in Plaza of
the Revolution municipality where she works as a dentist. "I get three
pairs of gloves a day and many times they break while I'm taking care of
a patient, but I cannot change them," she complains. She says that there
is little distribution of "equipment and hygiene items" to keep the
place clean and "to protect patients and staff."
The National Labor Inspection Office (ONIT) must ensure that these
situations do not happen and demand "administrative responsibility" in
case of accidents. But Nuria has never seen a representative of that
entity visiting the health center clinics where she works. "This is like
Russian roulette, any day I could get an infection."
Source: Danger, Men At Work – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/danger-men-at-work/
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 29 May 2017 — They call him "Manolo 440"
because a few years ago he had an electrocution accident in a building
under construction. He managed to survive and has since been given the
nickname of the voltage that almost killed him. He was lucky, unlike the
89 people who died in Cuba last year in one of the 11 work accidents
that occur every day on the Island.
Shortly before April 28, World Occupational Safety and Health Day, a
worker painting the façade of the Hotel Plaza in Havana stumbled and
fell two floors onto the street. He had no protective gear but was lucky
and was taken to the hospital.
The United Nations counts 6,300 people who die every day in the world
due to accidents or work-related illnesses. There are more than 317
million work accidents annually. But that data is only a part of it.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) has called for eradicating
the practice of "massaging" the numbers and this year is leading an
intensive campaign in which it insists that it is essential for
countries to improve "their ability to collect and use reliable data on
safety and health in Work (SST)."
In Cuba, information on this scourge is rarely addressed in the press,
although in recent years the National Bureau of Statistics and
Information (ONEI) has published some figures. According to this state
agency, in 2016 occupational accidents totaled 3,576 (144 more than in
the previous year). Havana leads the list of provinces with 27 deaths.
The head of the Department of Occupational Safety and Health at the
Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), Angel San Martín Duporté,
said a few weeks ago that "66% of accidents are caused by the poor
conduct of men and women. "
However, workers say the principal causes of work accidents are poor
organization, the chaotic supply of protective gear and measures, and
the incompetence of unions in demanding compliance with safety protocols
as the main causes of workplace accidents.
"These boots were brought to me by a relative from Ecuador," says a
sugarcane cutter at the Majibacoa sugar mill in Las Tunas. The man, who
preferred to be called Ricardo to avoid reprisals, said agricultural
workers in the area are subject to frequent "cuts on their hands and
feet." He says, "the type of footwear matters a lot, because if it is
strong and high the chances of getting cut are smaller."
All those who work alongside Ricardo are dressed in old military
uniforms that were gifts or that they bought in the informal
market. "They do not give us adequate clothes and when it does come the
sizes are too small or too large," the cane cutter complains. "We have
had colleagues who don't even have a hat and have gotten sun stroke,
with dizziness, headaches and even vomiting," he emphasizes.
Clothing and footwear are among the personal protective equipment which
according to the new Labor Code must be supplied free of charge by the
employer. Although an official of the Ministry of Labor and Social
Security clarifies via telephone to this newspaper that "each company
has autonomy to modify those issues."
Damaris, head of a construction brigade located in Central Havana, says
that the workers under her command are "very upset" because now they
have to pay for their work clothes and shoes. Previously, both garments
were "supplied free" but now are "deducted from wages" and in response
the workers are refusing to pay the union dues.
The Government allocates between 20% and 30% of the gross monthly salary
of a construction worker linked to the tourist sector to pay for life
insurance. "When someone is injured, that money is supposed to cover
them, but the truth is that it serves for very little."
An injured worker has the right to receive benefits in services such as
orthopedic appliances and prosthetics, according to Law 105/8 of Social
Security. As far as economic compensation is concerned, they get a total
or partial disability pension which can reach up to 90% of
their salary. In the case of death, the amount goes to the nearest
relatives such as husbands or minor children.
For a person in delicate health, that money barely lasts for a couple of
weeks. "I lost three fingers while working on the railroads," says
Yasiel Ruíz, a transportation technician who now sells churros near a
school in Marianao.
The former state employee would have received a disability payment of
less than the equivalent of 5 Cuban convertible pesos per month (about
$5 US), so he decided to start his own business. "I gave up the
financial compensation because it was more paperwork than benefits. My
family helps me and I have become accustomed to not having those
fingers, but at the beginning it was difficult," he confesses. He claims
that the accident in which he suffered the amputation was caused by "a
failure to close a cattle transfer cage," but he never brought his case
to a labor court.
Decisions like his are repeated over and over again. Vicente A.
Entrialgo León, a lawyer specializing in labor law, recently confirmed
to the official press that in Cuba "there are not a great number of
claims around this issue."
But the danger is not only in the complicated work of construction, the
hard work of the countryside, or the roughness of working on the railroad.
Nuria is afraid of contracting a disease at the polyclinic in Plaza of
the Revolution municipality where she works as a dentist. "I get three
pairs of gloves a day and many times they break while I'm taking care of
a patient, but I cannot change them," she complains. She says that there
is little distribution of "equipment and hygiene items" to keep the
place clean and "to protect patients and staff."
The National Labor Inspection Office (ONIT) must ensure that these
situations do not happen and demand "administrative responsibility" in
case of accidents. But Nuria has never seen a representative of that
entity visiting the health center clinics where she works. "This is like
Russian roulette, any day I could get an infection."
Source: Danger, Men At Work – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/danger-men-at-work/
Cuba: More Castroism but Without the Castros
Cuba: More Castroism but Without the Castros / Iván García
Iván García, 17 May 2017 — In front of an old mansion on 17th Street in
Vedado that now serves as the headquarters of the Union of Writers and
Artists, there is a poster showing hundreds of men dressed in battle
fatigues and lined up in military formation. A resounding verdict in two
rows of black letters reads, "Cuba Post-Castro."
The political propaganda machine is operating at full steam. On the
exterior walls of schools, factories, public buildings and produce
markets it is common to see "Fidel Castro's Concept of Revolution" and
the oft-repeated slogan "I am Fidel."
Nine months and three weeks before Raúl Castro will presumably cede
power, no one has any idea what protocols to follow for effecting a
transfer to a new leader.
As part of her official duties Mariela Castro Espín, the dictator's
daughter, has granted a couple of interviews to the international press,
reiterating that her father intends to resign from office. She claims
not to know who will succeed him and said he has no intention of being
further involved in politics.
Authoritarian governments control the flow of news so, to understand
them, you have to read between the lines. A reader must be an empirical
cryptographer, always on the lookout for a key piece data or a clue.
Although the tedious national press corps writes in Spanish, its
soporific articles are so saturated with official jargon and stale
rhetoric from the Cold War era that reading them is like deciphering a
Chinese riddle.
In spite of being surrounded by a dense smoke screen of secrets and
mysteries, it is still possible to surmise that — given the extent of
his travels throughout the island and the extensive press coverage they
have received — Miguel Díaz-Canel, one of the country's two
vice-presidents, is the man Raúl Castro has chosen to control the fate
of a Cuba facing a new, untested version of Castroism, one without a
Castro at the helm.
Tall and grey-haired, Díaz-Canel, has the look of a fading movie star.
Women like him for his resemblance to Richard Gere. Those who know him
say that he can be relaxed and witty. When he was the first secretary of
the communist party in Villa Clara during the Special Period, he could
be seen cycling through the streets of the city.
Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was born on April 20, 1960, at his
family's farm in the village of Falcón, outside Placetas, in Villa Clara
province. Aida, his mother, was a school teacher, and his father Miguel
was a mechanical plant worker in Santa Clara. In 2012, the newspaper La
Nueva España reported with pride that Díaz-Canel was the great-grandson
of Ramón Díaz-Canel, a Spaniard from Asturias who emigrated to Cuba in
the mid-nineteenth century.
For many of his student years he was on scholarship, first at Campo
Primero de Mayo high school and later at Campo Jesus Menéndez college
preparatory school, both in Santa Clara. In 1982 he graduated with a
degree in electronic engineering from Central University of Las Villas.
He began his professional career as an officer in an air defense unit in
the Revolutionary Armed Forces, a post he retained until April 1985.
After leaving the military, he became a professor at his alma mater in
Las Villas. After serving in an internationalist mission to Nicaragua in
1989, he worked as a "professional staffer" in the Union of Young
Communists.
In 1994 he was elected first party secretary in Villa Clara. Nine years
later he was named party leader in Holguín, a more challenging province
than Villa Clara. According to local residents, his work in Holguín
cannot be described as significant. That did not prevent Raúl Castro
from promoting him to membership in the party politburo. At the
time, Raúl stated: "He has a strong collective work ethic and high
expectations of the subordinates. He leads by example through his desire
to better himself every day and has demonstrated a solid ideological
commitment."
Raúl Castro is something of mentor to Diaz-Canel. In May 2009 he
summoned him to Havana and appointed him Minister of Higher Education.
In March 2012, he quit that post and replaced José Ramón Fernández as
vice-president of the Council of Ministers in charge of education,
science, culture and sport. On February 24, 2013, he was elected first
vice-president of both the Council of State and the Council of
Ministers, replacing José Ramón Machado Ventura, a party stalwart who
gave up his position "in order to promote the new generation."
Perhaps because he comes from a small village – the population of Falcón
is only six thousand — those who know him describe him as educated and
unassuming, someone who knows how to listen, though some believe he does
not have enough charisma to be president of the republic. But at least
in photos and videos he looks different from that coterie of rancid
officials who never smile at public appearances. Unlike former
high-level officials of roughly the same age such as Carlos Lage,
Roberto Robaina and Felipe Pérez Roque, Díaz-Canal always stayed out of
the media spotlight, preferring more intricate and discreet pathways.
"He is not one of the newly rich or a makeshift candidate," said Raul
Castro in 2013.
He has two children from his previous marriage. His current wife is Lis
Cuesta, a college professor whom he met while living in Holguín. A
cultural affairs source in Santa Clara recalls, "He was the one who gave
permission to El Mejunje nightclub to present shows featuring
homosexuals and transvestites and to sponsor rock concerts He also
allowed the provincial radio station to broadcast programming that was
quite critical of state institutions." In spite of such cultural
support, he is a sports fan, one who is especially fond of basketball.
Díaz-Canel does not appear to be an eloquent statesman or a great
orator. His speaking style is flat, as though he were exhausted. He does
not engage in soaring rhetoric but neither is he given to
anti-imperialist diatribes. As one official journalist noted, "he does
not just regurgitate the party line like Machado Ventura.*" The
journalist describes a event sponsored by the Union of Journalists at
which Díaz-Canel was present. His statements gave some attendees cause
for hope because "he did not repeat the usual litany about the need to
improve the press. But after the applause died down, things went back to
normal. The impression I have is that he is content to remain in
crouching position, awaiting his turn. He is a cross between Cantinflas
and Forrest Gump."
As an official at the municipal headquarters of the communist party
observes, "three or four candidates will be chosen at the plenary
session of the National Assembly in December. Of those, one will be
elected president." According to this official, expectations are that
the new president will govern the nation for the next five years.
"It seems like a bad joke," notes a party member familiar with internal
party dynamics. "Everyone knows the list of candidates is dictated from
above and the ones who are chosen belong to Cuba's only political party."
Some dissidents and exiles believe that at the last minute Raul Castro
will find a pretext, either a matter of national security or the crisis
in Venezuela, to remain in office for another five years.
Tomás Regalado, the mayor of Miami, told the Spanish newspaper El País
that he had bet money with a friend that Castro II would remain in
power. A retired historian thinks otherwise: "That is not a conclusion
the general shares. Raul is at the end of his rope. He is tired of
power. And quite simply, if you want to undo the Gordian knot that is
the embargo, you cannot have anyone with the name Castro in a governing
role. I believe that Raúl will remain behind the scenes, calling the
shots. On June 3 he will be eighty-six-years old and anyone that age
could kick the bucket at any time."
Among Afro-Cubans, the passing of the presidential baton does not arouse
much interest. "The game plan will be the same. The communist party is
the only game in town. I don't think there will be any major changes. In
terms of the economy, perhaps they will do away with the double currency
and maybe there will be more cooperatives in the state service sector.
But the script will not change much," says the employee of a Havana
nightclub.
One political science graduate is optimistic and hopes the presidential
handover provides some surprises. "It's a different generation so, of
course, they are going to think differently. Don't forget what happened
under Gorbachev in the former USSR. Or under Balaguer, Trujillo's
vice-president, in the Dominican Republic. Both began the path towards
democracy. Just as in Cuba today, people didn't necessarily say what
they meant. The gap is less than one imagines and a reformer could emerge."
Arousing Cubans' interest in national politics will require creativity.
After almost sixty years of stasis, people move by force of inertia.
Most Cubans respond to the government's summons like automatons. And
although they do not express their true feelings publicly, in private
they confess to pessimism and frustration. They do not believe that a
new litter of leaders is capable of building an efficient and prosperous
political, economic and social system.
A large segment of the population is tired of everything and everyone.
They have no faith in Castro, Díaz-Canel or anyone else who might happen
to come along. Changing the current state of public opinion will require
daring strategies as well as new and convincing promises. Yet all the
government is offering is more Castroism. But without the Castros.
*José Ramón Machado Ventura, First Vice-President and Second Secretary
of the Culban Communist Party.
Source: Cuba: More Castroism but Without the Castros / Iván García –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-more-castroism-but-without-the-castros-ivn-garca/
Iván García, 17 May 2017 — In front of an old mansion on 17th Street in
Vedado that now serves as the headquarters of the Union of Writers and
Artists, there is a poster showing hundreds of men dressed in battle
fatigues and lined up in military formation. A resounding verdict in two
rows of black letters reads, "Cuba Post-Castro."
The political propaganda machine is operating at full steam. On the
exterior walls of schools, factories, public buildings and produce
markets it is common to see "Fidel Castro's Concept of Revolution" and
the oft-repeated slogan "I am Fidel."
Nine months and three weeks before Raúl Castro will presumably cede
power, no one has any idea what protocols to follow for effecting a
transfer to a new leader.
As part of her official duties Mariela Castro Espín, the dictator's
daughter, has granted a couple of interviews to the international press,
reiterating that her father intends to resign from office. She claims
not to know who will succeed him and said he has no intention of being
further involved in politics.
Authoritarian governments control the flow of news so, to understand
them, you have to read between the lines. A reader must be an empirical
cryptographer, always on the lookout for a key piece data or a clue.
Although the tedious national press corps writes in Spanish, its
soporific articles are so saturated with official jargon and stale
rhetoric from the Cold War era that reading them is like deciphering a
Chinese riddle.
In spite of being surrounded by a dense smoke screen of secrets and
mysteries, it is still possible to surmise that — given the extent of
his travels throughout the island and the extensive press coverage they
have received — Miguel Díaz-Canel, one of the country's two
vice-presidents, is the man Raúl Castro has chosen to control the fate
of a Cuba facing a new, untested version of Castroism, one without a
Castro at the helm.
Tall and grey-haired, Díaz-Canel, has the look of a fading movie star.
Women like him for his resemblance to Richard Gere. Those who know him
say that he can be relaxed and witty. When he was the first secretary of
the communist party in Villa Clara during the Special Period, he could
be seen cycling through the streets of the city.
Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was born on April 20, 1960, at his
family's farm in the village of Falcón, outside Placetas, in Villa Clara
province. Aida, his mother, was a school teacher, and his father Miguel
was a mechanical plant worker in Santa Clara. In 2012, the newspaper La
Nueva España reported with pride that Díaz-Canel was the great-grandson
of Ramón Díaz-Canel, a Spaniard from Asturias who emigrated to Cuba in
the mid-nineteenth century.
For many of his student years he was on scholarship, first at Campo
Primero de Mayo high school and later at Campo Jesus Menéndez college
preparatory school, both in Santa Clara. In 1982 he graduated with a
degree in electronic engineering from Central University of Las Villas.
He began his professional career as an officer in an air defense unit in
the Revolutionary Armed Forces, a post he retained until April 1985.
After leaving the military, he became a professor at his alma mater in
Las Villas. After serving in an internationalist mission to Nicaragua in
1989, he worked as a "professional staffer" in the Union of Young
Communists.
In 1994 he was elected first party secretary in Villa Clara. Nine years
later he was named party leader in Holguín, a more challenging province
than Villa Clara. According to local residents, his work in Holguín
cannot be described as significant. That did not prevent Raúl Castro
from promoting him to membership in the party politburo. At the
time, Raúl stated: "He has a strong collective work ethic and high
expectations of the subordinates. He leads by example through his desire
to better himself every day and has demonstrated a solid ideological
commitment."
Raúl Castro is something of mentor to Diaz-Canel. In May 2009 he
summoned him to Havana and appointed him Minister of Higher Education.
In March 2012, he quit that post and replaced José Ramón Fernández as
vice-president of the Council of Ministers in charge of education,
science, culture and sport. On February 24, 2013, he was elected first
vice-president of both the Council of State and the Council of
Ministers, replacing José Ramón Machado Ventura, a party stalwart who
gave up his position "in order to promote the new generation."
Perhaps because he comes from a small village – the population of Falcón
is only six thousand — those who know him describe him as educated and
unassuming, someone who knows how to listen, though some believe he does
not have enough charisma to be president of the republic. But at least
in photos and videos he looks different from that coterie of rancid
officials who never smile at public appearances. Unlike former
high-level officials of roughly the same age such as Carlos Lage,
Roberto Robaina and Felipe Pérez Roque, Díaz-Canal always stayed out of
the media spotlight, preferring more intricate and discreet pathways.
"He is not one of the newly rich or a makeshift candidate," said Raul
Castro in 2013.
He has two children from his previous marriage. His current wife is Lis
Cuesta, a college professor whom he met while living in Holguín. A
cultural affairs source in Santa Clara recalls, "He was the one who gave
permission to El Mejunje nightclub to present shows featuring
homosexuals and transvestites and to sponsor rock concerts He also
allowed the provincial radio station to broadcast programming that was
quite critical of state institutions." In spite of such cultural
support, he is a sports fan, one who is especially fond of basketball.
Díaz-Canel does not appear to be an eloquent statesman or a great
orator. His speaking style is flat, as though he were exhausted. He does
not engage in soaring rhetoric but neither is he given to
anti-imperialist diatribes. As one official journalist noted, "he does
not just regurgitate the party line like Machado Ventura.*" The
journalist describes a event sponsored by the Union of Journalists at
which Díaz-Canel was present. His statements gave some attendees cause
for hope because "he did not repeat the usual litany about the need to
improve the press. But after the applause died down, things went back to
normal. The impression I have is that he is content to remain in
crouching position, awaiting his turn. He is a cross between Cantinflas
and Forrest Gump."
As an official at the municipal headquarters of the communist party
observes, "three or four candidates will be chosen at the plenary
session of the National Assembly in December. Of those, one will be
elected president." According to this official, expectations are that
the new president will govern the nation for the next five years.
"It seems like a bad joke," notes a party member familiar with internal
party dynamics. "Everyone knows the list of candidates is dictated from
above and the ones who are chosen belong to Cuba's only political party."
Some dissidents and exiles believe that at the last minute Raul Castro
will find a pretext, either a matter of national security or the crisis
in Venezuela, to remain in office for another five years.
Tomás Regalado, the mayor of Miami, told the Spanish newspaper El País
that he had bet money with a friend that Castro II would remain in
power. A retired historian thinks otherwise: "That is not a conclusion
the general shares. Raul is at the end of his rope. He is tired of
power. And quite simply, if you want to undo the Gordian knot that is
the embargo, you cannot have anyone with the name Castro in a governing
role. I believe that Raúl will remain behind the scenes, calling the
shots. On June 3 he will be eighty-six-years old and anyone that age
could kick the bucket at any time."
Among Afro-Cubans, the passing of the presidential baton does not arouse
much interest. "The game plan will be the same. The communist party is
the only game in town. I don't think there will be any major changes. In
terms of the economy, perhaps they will do away with the double currency
and maybe there will be more cooperatives in the state service sector.
But the script will not change much," says the employee of a Havana
nightclub.
One political science graduate is optimistic and hopes the presidential
handover provides some surprises. "It's a different generation so, of
course, they are going to think differently. Don't forget what happened
under Gorbachev in the former USSR. Or under Balaguer, Trujillo's
vice-president, in the Dominican Republic. Both began the path towards
democracy. Just as in Cuba today, people didn't necessarily say what
they meant. The gap is less than one imagines and a reformer could emerge."
Arousing Cubans' interest in national politics will require creativity.
After almost sixty years of stasis, people move by force of inertia.
Most Cubans respond to the government's summons like automatons. And
although they do not express their true feelings publicly, in private
they confess to pessimism and frustration. They do not believe that a
new litter of leaders is capable of building an efficient and prosperous
political, economic and social system.
A large segment of the population is tired of everything and everyone.
They have no faith in Castro, Díaz-Canel or anyone else who might happen
to come along. Changing the current state of public opinion will require
daring strategies as well as new and convincing promises. Yet all the
government is offering is more Castroism. But without the Castros.
*José Ramón Machado Ventura, First Vice-President and Second Secretary
of the Culban Communist Party.
Source: Cuba: More Castroism but Without the Castros / Iván García –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-more-castroism-but-without-the-castros-ivn-garca/
The Kremlin is Back
The Kremlin is Back
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 28 May 2017 — After decades of intense
contact, the Russians left few footprints in Cuba. Some young people
with the names Vladimir or Natacha, or the nesting matrioshka dolls
decorating a few rooms, are the last vestiges of that
relationship. However, in recent years the links between Havana and
Moscow have gained strength. The Kremlin is back.
Russia has long been disembarking in Latin America into the hands of
those same governments that in international forums demand a greater
respect for sovereignty and "the free choice of the people." Its
populist leaders, in part to annoy the United States, make alliances
with Vladimir Putin under the premise that "the enemy of my enemy is my
friend."
That type of partnership allowed Venezuela's Miraflores Palace to be
equipped with 5,000 shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS),
according to a document recently published by Reuters. The arsenal began
to be accumulated in the time of the late President Hugo Chavez, but is
more dangerous now amid the political instability that is
leading Nicholas Maduro to falter.
In Central America, Nicaragua functions as the gateway for the voracious
superpower. Daniel Ortega has about 50 combat tanks sent by Moscow and
his territory serves as a site for Russian military advisers. The
corrupt system of the Sandinistas creates a favorable scenario for the
former KGB official's desire for expansion.
However, Havana remains Russia's main ally on this side of the
world. The suspicion that arose between the two countries, after the
dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the coming to power of Boris
Yeltsin, has been dissipating. With Putin in command, something of the
USSR has been reborn and diplomatic ties are tightening again.
In the neighborhood of Miramar, west of the Cuban capital, the Russian
embassy seems to have become more prominent in the last five
years. Shaped like a sword plunged into the city's heart, the building
is jokingly called "the control tower," from where the stern stepmother
scrutinizes everything that occurs in her former and yearned-for domain.
Russia has just lifted Raul Castro out of the quagmire after Caracas cut
oil shipments. In the years of the idyll with Chávez, Cuba received
about 100,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude, but in recent months
that amount has been reduced by more than 40%. The government was forced
to cut fuel delivery to state-owned vehicles and restrict the sale of
premium or specialty gasoline.
The Russian oil company Rosneft has come to Raul Castro's aid
and pledged to provide the island with 250,000 tonnes of oil and diesel,
some 2 million barrels. The rescue operation leaves a trail of doubts
about how the Plaza of the Revolution will pay Moscow, amid the
country's lack of liquidity and the recession.
Added to the alarming signs is the fact that in recent days the son of
the Cuban president, Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín, met with the
Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Pátrushev, to address
the cooperation between both nations in the area of computer
security. In 2014, in Moscow, the dauphin signed a memorandum of
cooperation in the area of intelligence.
The reunion between the old allies has been sealed with a symbolic
gesture. Russia is taking care of the repair of the dome of the Capitol
of Havana, which it will cover with natural stone, new bronze plates,
and gold leaf that will shine under the tropical sun. A defiant message
addressed directly to Washington, the city where the near twin of the
imposing Cuban building stands.
As the Russian advance unfolds in various parts of Latin America, Donald
Trump looks the other way. Enveloped in the scandal of possible Putin
interference in the elections that favored his arrival in the White
House, the tycoon is more interested in the Middle East or in erecting a
border wall with Mexico than in approaching that region more
distant from the Rio Grande.
His indifference is evident not only in his words. The US president has
just proposed substantial budget cuts to the assistance provided to all
of the continent, a posture that contrasts with the ground won by the
Kremlin in the economic and military sphere, propping up authoritarian
and decadent regimes. The Cold War is reborn in Latin America.
But this time Moscow has returned without that mask with which it hid
its geopolitical longings adorned with phrases such as "support to the
proletarians of the world" or "disinterested development aid to the
poorest nations."
Now it displays a cruder and more direct diplomacy. It is not willing to
subsidize but intends to buy. It no longer hides under an ideological
cloak, but exhibits that crude pragmatism that oozes the capitalism that
the Communists ended up adopting.
If once it lost positions and had to take refuge — inside its own pride
— to lick its wounds, now Russia wants to step up the pace and regain
lost ground in Latin America. It knows it has allies in the region
willing to skip all ethical and patriotic considerations to help it
confront the United States. And it knows it must hurry, because many of
these compadres are becoming more unpresentable every day.
Its cronies on this side need a Moscow that provides them with armaments
and watches their backs in international organizations. They see it as a
burly bear ready to show it teeth to Washington as often as needed. In
exchange, they grant it positions in their nations, intelligence
information and the calculated fidelity of those who expect much in
return. They dream of making Russia "great again."
______________
Editorial Note: The original text in Spanish was published this Saturday
May 27 in the Spanish newspaper El País.
Source: The Kremlin is Back – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-kremlin-is-back/
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 28 May 2017 — After decades of intense
contact, the Russians left few footprints in Cuba. Some young people
with the names Vladimir or Natacha, or the nesting matrioshka dolls
decorating a few rooms, are the last vestiges of that
relationship. However, in recent years the links between Havana and
Moscow have gained strength. The Kremlin is back.
Russia has long been disembarking in Latin America into the hands of
those same governments that in international forums demand a greater
respect for sovereignty and "the free choice of the people." Its
populist leaders, in part to annoy the United States, make alliances
with Vladimir Putin under the premise that "the enemy of my enemy is my
friend."
That type of partnership allowed Venezuela's Miraflores Palace to be
equipped with 5,000 shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS),
according to a document recently published by Reuters. The arsenal began
to be accumulated in the time of the late President Hugo Chavez, but is
more dangerous now amid the political instability that is
leading Nicholas Maduro to falter.
In Central America, Nicaragua functions as the gateway for the voracious
superpower. Daniel Ortega has about 50 combat tanks sent by Moscow and
his territory serves as a site for Russian military advisers. The
corrupt system of the Sandinistas creates a favorable scenario for the
former KGB official's desire for expansion.
However, Havana remains Russia's main ally on this side of the
world. The suspicion that arose between the two countries, after the
dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the coming to power of Boris
Yeltsin, has been dissipating. With Putin in command, something of the
USSR has been reborn and diplomatic ties are tightening again.
In the neighborhood of Miramar, west of the Cuban capital, the Russian
embassy seems to have become more prominent in the last five
years. Shaped like a sword plunged into the city's heart, the building
is jokingly called "the control tower," from where the stern stepmother
scrutinizes everything that occurs in her former and yearned-for domain.
Russia has just lifted Raul Castro out of the quagmire after Caracas cut
oil shipments. In the years of the idyll with Chávez, Cuba received
about 100,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude, but in recent months
that amount has been reduced by more than 40%. The government was forced
to cut fuel delivery to state-owned vehicles and restrict the sale of
premium or specialty gasoline.
The Russian oil company Rosneft has come to Raul Castro's aid
and pledged to provide the island with 250,000 tonnes of oil and diesel,
some 2 million barrels. The rescue operation leaves a trail of doubts
about how the Plaza of the Revolution will pay Moscow, amid the
country's lack of liquidity and the recession.
Added to the alarming signs is the fact that in recent days the son of
the Cuban president, Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín, met with the
Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Pátrushev, to address
the cooperation between both nations in the area of computer
security. In 2014, in Moscow, the dauphin signed a memorandum of
cooperation in the area of intelligence.
The reunion between the old allies has been sealed with a symbolic
gesture. Russia is taking care of the repair of the dome of the Capitol
of Havana, which it will cover with natural stone, new bronze plates,
and gold leaf that will shine under the tropical sun. A defiant message
addressed directly to Washington, the city where the near twin of the
imposing Cuban building stands.
As the Russian advance unfolds in various parts of Latin America, Donald
Trump looks the other way. Enveloped in the scandal of possible Putin
interference in the elections that favored his arrival in the White
House, the tycoon is more interested in the Middle East or in erecting a
border wall with Mexico than in approaching that region more
distant from the Rio Grande.
His indifference is evident not only in his words. The US president has
just proposed substantial budget cuts to the assistance provided to all
of the continent, a posture that contrasts with the ground won by the
Kremlin in the economic and military sphere, propping up authoritarian
and decadent regimes. The Cold War is reborn in Latin America.
But this time Moscow has returned without that mask with which it hid
its geopolitical longings adorned with phrases such as "support to the
proletarians of the world" or "disinterested development aid to the
poorest nations."
Now it displays a cruder and more direct diplomacy. It is not willing to
subsidize but intends to buy. It no longer hides under an ideological
cloak, but exhibits that crude pragmatism that oozes the capitalism that
the Communists ended up adopting.
If once it lost positions and had to take refuge — inside its own pride
— to lick its wounds, now Russia wants to step up the pace and regain
lost ground in Latin America. It knows it has allies in the region
willing to skip all ethical and patriotic considerations to help it
confront the United States. And it knows it must hurry, because many of
these compadres are becoming more unpresentable every day.
Its cronies on this side need a Moscow that provides them with armaments
and watches their backs in international organizations. They see it as a
burly bear ready to show it teeth to Washington as often as needed. In
exchange, they grant it positions in their nations, intelligence
information and the calculated fidelity of those who expect much in
return. They dream of making Russia "great again."
______________
Editorial Note: The original text in Spanish was published this Saturday
May 27 in the Spanish newspaper El País.
Source: The Kremlin is Back – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-kremlin-is-back/
Havana: Clandestine Business Deals, Poverty and Glamor
Havana: Clandestine Business Deals, Poverty and Glamor / Iván García
Ivan Garcia, 26 April 2017 — When night falls, it's not advisable to
walk through certain neighborhoods in Havana. Like the one from El
Curita Park, on Reina and Galiano, up to the corner of Monte and Cienfuegos.
In addition to the disagreeable odor from the sewer water running
through the streets, you'll see propped-up buildings, beggars and drunks
hanging out in the doorways, and poor cheap whores on the hunt for the
incautious.
More than 10,000 compatriots of the eastern provinces who flee poverty
reside illegally in Havana. In the case of Zenaida, a woman from
Santiago, who with a bag full of cones of peanuts and chickpeas for sale
ambles along toward a rickety room in a rooming house on O'Reilly
Street, which she rents.
There, under the light of an incandescent bulb, she loads several pails
of water and waits her turn to bathe in one of the three shared
bathrooms of the tenement. After reheating her meal, she turns on the
old Chinese television and hopes for the arrival of her 22-year-old son,
who makes a living by pedaling 12 hours in a bicitaxi.
"This is what it's like to live in poverty: eat badly and make a few
pesos to survive in the lion's den. Yes, because in this zone of Havana
you have to be a lynx if you want to make a little money," says Zenaida,
seated in an iron chair.
In spite of everything, she doesn't complain. "In Santiago de Cuba we
were worse off. The water supply on the outskirts of the city comes
every 40 days, and the money just goes. At least in the capital,
although we live like animals, you can make enough money to eat and send
detergent and clothing to relatives in Oriente. If I were younger, I
would be hooking like some women in the building. But now I can't do
that kind of thing," confesses Zenaida.
The old part of the city is a network of narrow alleyways with broken
asphalt and deteriorated buildings where Cubans live who know their way
around the streets.
Here illegalities are not hidden. Any neighbor knows who sells imported
marijuana, cocaine delivered from a boat on the coast or who rents half
an hour in a room in his house for convertible pesos, so that a client
can have a toss in the hay with a prostitute who charges in the national
money.
Just in front of the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski, formerly Manzana de
Gómez, which is close to being inaugurated, several blue buses with
large windows in Parque Central pick up more than 100 workers from India
who are putting the final touches on the first five-star plus hotel in Cuba.
Seated on a marble bench in front of the Kempinski Hotel, José Alberto
wonders, "Why are they paying an Indian, 500 dollars a month and Cuban
workers, adding up pesos and hard currency, don't even get 60 dollars?"
And he answers himself: "These people (the Regime) don't respect us.
Havana now is the same as during the epoch of Batista. Luxury hotels are
for the foreigners, surrounded by poverty, whores and guys who have to
clean to earn four pesos. The worst is that there's no end to this."
José Alberto is a perfect wildcard. He gets money from the illegal Cuban
lottery, parks cars for a home restaurant in the area and fills the
cistern with water for the "retired guys in the neighborhood."
Under the protection of night and avoiding the black-uniformed police
with their German Shepherds who patrol the streets at this time, José
Alberto asks for money from passing tourists. "The ones from the State
(United States) are the most generous, and the Japanese, if they like
you. Europeans are the most stingy."
Old Havana has two opposite faces, distinct levels of life and many ways
to earn money, outside the law or behind its back. In the areas restored
by the historian Eusebio Leal, with their cobbled streets, renovated
buildings, innumerable cafes, restaurants and hard currency shops, the
panorama is beautiful.
Two blocks up or down, the landscape is something else. At the entrance
to crowded quarters, shirtless men standing in the heat seem to be
waiting for a a miracle. Around them are screaming neighbors, Reggaeton
at full blast and kids playing soccer with torn tennis shoes and a
deflated balloon.
On calle Chacón, a few meters from the Museum of the Revolution, where a
garrison of young soldiers at the back of a patio guard the Granma yacht
and other relics and trophies of the delirious guerrilla saga of Fidel
Castro, there are three elegant bars where tourists calmly drink mojitos
and nibble on garlic shrimp.
Nearby, a group of boys, mainly black, sitting on the sidewalk pavement,
wait for the foreigners to leave the bars, restaurants or home
restaurants to ask them for money, chewing gum or pens.
The revolution of the humble, so promoted by the Castro brothers, today
is a slogan without meaning for the poor people of Havana.
Iván García
Note from Tania Quintero: The night photo of the Gran Hotel Manzana
Kempinski, the first with five-plus stars in Cuba, was taken by Iván
García. Up to this date, the hotel installations had not been officially
inaugurated, but after putting in shops and luxury boutiques on the
ground floor, with showcase windows on the street, every day hundreds of
people go to look at and even photograph the clothing and accessories
exhibited, with prices that are not within reach for the large majority
of the population. Already the first incident happened when they removed
the bust of the student leader, Julio Antonio Mella, which had been
installed in 1965, from the central patio with access to the public.
An installation artist held a silent protest with a sign that said
"Where is Mella?" Without using violence, the police took him away, put
him in a vehicle and drove him home. The hotel, constructed by
Kempinski, a Swiss company founded in 1897, occupies the space of the
old Manzana de Gómez, the first commercial center on the Island, located
on Neptuno, San Rafael, Zuleta and Monserrate streets, in the heart of
Havana.
Inaugurated in 1910, along its history the Manzana de Gómez housed law
offices, commercial businesses, restaurants and cafeterias, among other
facilities. The management of the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski is
under Gaviota S.A., a Cuban tourist corporation administered by the
military.
Translated by Regina Anavy
Source: Havana: Clandestine Business Deals, Poverty and Glamor / Iván
García – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/havana-clandestine-business-deals-poverty-and-glamor-ivn-garca/
Ivan Garcia, 26 April 2017 — When night falls, it's not advisable to
walk through certain neighborhoods in Havana. Like the one from El
Curita Park, on Reina and Galiano, up to the corner of Monte and Cienfuegos.
In addition to the disagreeable odor from the sewer water running
through the streets, you'll see propped-up buildings, beggars and drunks
hanging out in the doorways, and poor cheap whores on the hunt for the
incautious.
More than 10,000 compatriots of the eastern provinces who flee poverty
reside illegally in Havana. In the case of Zenaida, a woman from
Santiago, who with a bag full of cones of peanuts and chickpeas for sale
ambles along toward a rickety room in a rooming house on O'Reilly
Street, which she rents.
There, under the light of an incandescent bulb, she loads several pails
of water and waits her turn to bathe in one of the three shared
bathrooms of the tenement. After reheating her meal, she turns on the
old Chinese television and hopes for the arrival of her 22-year-old son,
who makes a living by pedaling 12 hours in a bicitaxi.
"This is what it's like to live in poverty: eat badly and make a few
pesos to survive in the lion's den. Yes, because in this zone of Havana
you have to be a lynx if you want to make a little money," says Zenaida,
seated in an iron chair.
In spite of everything, she doesn't complain. "In Santiago de Cuba we
were worse off. The water supply on the outskirts of the city comes
every 40 days, and the money just goes. At least in the capital,
although we live like animals, you can make enough money to eat and send
detergent and clothing to relatives in Oriente. If I were younger, I
would be hooking like some women in the building. But now I can't do
that kind of thing," confesses Zenaida.
The old part of the city is a network of narrow alleyways with broken
asphalt and deteriorated buildings where Cubans live who know their way
around the streets.
Here illegalities are not hidden. Any neighbor knows who sells imported
marijuana, cocaine delivered from a boat on the coast or who rents half
an hour in a room in his house for convertible pesos, so that a client
can have a toss in the hay with a prostitute who charges in the national
money.
Just in front of the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski, formerly Manzana de
Gómez, which is close to being inaugurated, several blue buses with
large windows in Parque Central pick up more than 100 workers from India
who are putting the final touches on the first five-star plus hotel in Cuba.
Seated on a marble bench in front of the Kempinski Hotel, José Alberto
wonders, "Why are they paying an Indian, 500 dollars a month and Cuban
workers, adding up pesos and hard currency, don't even get 60 dollars?"
And he answers himself: "These people (the Regime) don't respect us.
Havana now is the same as during the epoch of Batista. Luxury hotels are
for the foreigners, surrounded by poverty, whores and guys who have to
clean to earn four pesos. The worst is that there's no end to this."
José Alberto is a perfect wildcard. He gets money from the illegal Cuban
lottery, parks cars for a home restaurant in the area and fills the
cistern with water for the "retired guys in the neighborhood."
Under the protection of night and avoiding the black-uniformed police
with their German Shepherds who patrol the streets at this time, José
Alberto asks for money from passing tourists. "The ones from the State
(United States) are the most generous, and the Japanese, if they like
you. Europeans are the most stingy."
Old Havana has two opposite faces, distinct levels of life and many ways
to earn money, outside the law or behind its back. In the areas restored
by the historian Eusebio Leal, with their cobbled streets, renovated
buildings, innumerable cafes, restaurants and hard currency shops, the
panorama is beautiful.
Two blocks up or down, the landscape is something else. At the entrance
to crowded quarters, shirtless men standing in the heat seem to be
waiting for a a miracle. Around them are screaming neighbors, Reggaeton
at full blast and kids playing soccer with torn tennis shoes and a
deflated balloon.
On calle Chacón, a few meters from the Museum of the Revolution, where a
garrison of young soldiers at the back of a patio guard the Granma yacht
and other relics and trophies of the delirious guerrilla saga of Fidel
Castro, there are three elegant bars where tourists calmly drink mojitos
and nibble on garlic shrimp.
Nearby, a group of boys, mainly black, sitting on the sidewalk pavement,
wait for the foreigners to leave the bars, restaurants or home
restaurants to ask them for money, chewing gum or pens.
The revolution of the humble, so promoted by the Castro brothers, today
is a slogan without meaning for the poor people of Havana.
Iván García
Note from Tania Quintero: The night photo of the Gran Hotel Manzana
Kempinski, the first with five-plus stars in Cuba, was taken by Iván
García. Up to this date, the hotel installations had not been officially
inaugurated, but after putting in shops and luxury boutiques on the
ground floor, with showcase windows on the street, every day hundreds of
people go to look at and even photograph the clothing and accessories
exhibited, with prices that are not within reach for the large majority
of the population. Already the first incident happened when they removed
the bust of the student leader, Julio Antonio Mella, which had been
installed in 1965, from the central patio with access to the public.
An installation artist held a silent protest with a sign that said
"Where is Mella?" Without using violence, the police took him away, put
him in a vehicle and drove him home. The hotel, constructed by
Kempinski, a Swiss company founded in 1897, occupies the space of the
old Manzana de Gómez, the first commercial center on the Island, located
on Neptuno, San Rafael, Zuleta and Monserrate streets, in the heart of
Havana.
Inaugurated in 1910, along its history the Manzana de Gómez housed law
offices, commercial businesses, restaurants and cafeterias, among other
facilities. The management of the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski is
under Gaviota S.A., a Cuban tourist corporation administered by the
military.
Translated by Regina Anavy
Source: Havana: Clandestine Business Deals, Poverty and Glamor / Iván
García – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/havana-clandestine-business-deals-poverty-and-glamor-ivn-garca/
The Future Is Built With Cement … But There Isn’t Any
The Future Is Built With Cement … But There Isn't Any
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 May 2017 — The cranes show off
their slender anatomy in some areas of Havana where several luxury
hotels are being built. Apart from this landscape of progress, private
construction and repairs face technological problems and shortages. This
week it has been cement's turn.
"This is the third time I have come and I am leaving with an empty
wheelbarrow," a customer on the hunt for construction materials
complained Thursday in the Havana's La Timba neighborhood. The employee
standing behind the counter confirmed that "they are sending less than
before and every day more people come to try to buy it."
To send, to arrive and to supply are the verbs used to refer to the
state distribution of any product, be it eggs, milk powder, or tiles to
cover a roof. There is an enormous supply chain responsible for
distributing construction materials, in a country where 39% of the
housing stock is in "regular or poor" condition.
Since the beginning of the year, gray cement has become the biggest
headache for those involved in construction, a situation that has
worsened in recent weeks.
Several employees in the stores in the capital specializing in
construction materials and that sell their goods in convertible pesos,
told 14ymedio that since the beginning of 2017 they have not received
cement.
The government has chosen to place the product in the network that sells
in Cuban pesos, the so-called national currency, in the face of previous
criticisms of excessive prices in the foreign exchange network. However,
a network of corruption, diversion of resources and re-sales makes it
almost impossible to get one of those sacks with the precious gray powder.
The national cement industry has not yet recovered from the blow that
resulted from the fall of Europe's socialist camp and the withdrawal of
the Soviet Union's subsidies to Cuba. At present, six factories on the
island managed to produce slightly more than 1.4 million tonnes of gray
cement last year, a figure well below the 5.2 million achieved in the
same period in neighboring Dominican Republic, a country with a
comparable population (about 11 million inhabitants), according to a
report from the Producers Association.
The government has assigned the Construction Materials Business Group
(GEICON) to produce cement in each of its variants, in addition to other
building materials such as aggregates, blocks, and flooring elements,
along with asbestos, fibroasphalt and roofing tiles.
The sales and marketing director of the group, Rubén Gómez Medina,
recently explained on national television that despite the sector's
recovery over the last five years, it still cannot meet demand.
The situation becomes complex for self-employed masons, and also for
those who are part of a non-agricultural cooperative. "As there is no
wholesale market, when we are contracted to do a job we have to place
responsibility for the materials on the customer," says Carlos Núñez,
who two years ago obtained a license for that occupation.
The entrepreneur remembers that at first they calculated a budget that
included everything, the plans, the materials and the labor. "Since we
started, the prices of aggregates have changed from one day to the next
and no one can tolerate that."
A bag of gray cement last year cost just over 6 CUC in an official
store. In the open markets the same bag is sold in national currency at
the equivalent of 7 CUC. The lack of supply has meant that in the
underground market, where it is also scarce, the price doubles and in
some areas reaches as high as 18 CUC.
Cement, along with pork or cooking oil, is one of those goods that set
the pace of the everyday economy. Its disappearance or shortage is a
direct blow to the population's quality of life.
Of the more than 23,000 homes that were built during 2015, less than
half were erected by the state. The rest were built by the private sector.
Now, for many, the only option is to buy gray cement on the black
market, or to sleep outside one of the open markets all night to see if
there's an early delivery.
On the outskirts of Fe del Valle Park, mixed among the dozens of people
who connect to the Internet in this popular Wi-Fi zone, resellers
abound. The site has a reputation for being a place where you can find
everything, "even 12 gauge electric cables for electrical
installations," a young man nicknamed El Chino proclaims without modesty.
So as not to be confused with a police informant or an inspector, the
buyer should pronounce the question in the most roundabout way. "How's
the cement coming along, pal?" El Chino arches his eyebrows and with a
precise professional air answers, " P350, which is for mounting plates,
goes out of here at between 10 and 12 CUC a bag and P250, for
plastering, goes for 9."
He pauses, as if he is sorry for what he is about to confess and adds,
"But right now there isn't any."
At the Ministry of Construction (MICONS) the officials questioned do not
clarify the reasons for the shortage, although several cooperative
members engaged in construction assert that part of the production of
the western zone has been sent to Guantánamo province to repair the
houses damaged by Hurricane Matthew.
A MICONS employee, who preferred anonymity, does not agree with that
explanation and insists that "since a group of measures to promote
construction by self-effort was implemented, there was a building
explosion that was not foreseen in the production plans for the
materials… Important hotels are being built and the supply to those
places can't be allowed to fail, so it has been prioritized," he adds.
The most recent version of the Foreign Investment Opportunities
Portfolio describes the objective of the authorities to "promote the
construction of infrastructure and industrial maintenance, mainly for
the nickel, oil and cement industries." But so far potential investors
are wary of putting their money in ventures on the Island.
"What has happened is that the cement industry is bottoming out and can
not withstand the pressure of the high demand," an engineer with 30
years of experience in the sector, who prefers to be called Osvaldo –
not his real name – to avoid reprisals for his statements, tells this
newspaper.
In 2016 the country's factories have had serious problems due to the
lack of maintenance but transportation has also burdened the
results. "We depend on the Cuban Railways to transfer part of the
material used in cement manufacture," Osvaldo said. "It's a chain of
inefficiencies that ends up breaking down at the weakest link: the
customer."
"No new equipment or parts are coming into the country. In many
factories, the furnace engines, the mechanical couplings and the mills
are badly damaged," he adds.
"This industry is the engine of prosperity, because it is the one that
allows houses to be built, people to have more amenities and there is
progress," Osvaldo proudly says. "But if we do not invest a good amount
of money we will continue as we are, between improvisations and defaults."
To illustrate his comment, the engineer shows the side wall of a newly
built house that is still waiting to be plastered. "It's because I
haven't been able to find the cement anywhere," justifies the owner.
Source: The Future Is Built With Cement … But There Isn't Any –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-future-is-built-with-cement-but-there-isnt-any/
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 26 May 2017 — The cranes show off
their slender anatomy in some areas of Havana where several luxury
hotels are being built. Apart from this landscape of progress, private
construction and repairs face technological problems and shortages. This
week it has been cement's turn.
"This is the third time I have come and I am leaving with an empty
wheelbarrow," a customer on the hunt for construction materials
complained Thursday in the Havana's La Timba neighborhood. The employee
standing behind the counter confirmed that "they are sending less than
before and every day more people come to try to buy it."
To send, to arrive and to supply are the verbs used to refer to the
state distribution of any product, be it eggs, milk powder, or tiles to
cover a roof. There is an enormous supply chain responsible for
distributing construction materials, in a country where 39% of the
housing stock is in "regular or poor" condition.
Since the beginning of the year, gray cement has become the biggest
headache for those involved in construction, a situation that has
worsened in recent weeks.
Several employees in the stores in the capital specializing in
construction materials and that sell their goods in convertible pesos,
told 14ymedio that since the beginning of 2017 they have not received
cement.
The government has chosen to place the product in the network that sells
in Cuban pesos, the so-called national currency, in the face of previous
criticisms of excessive prices in the foreign exchange network. However,
a network of corruption, diversion of resources and re-sales makes it
almost impossible to get one of those sacks with the precious gray powder.
The national cement industry has not yet recovered from the blow that
resulted from the fall of Europe's socialist camp and the withdrawal of
the Soviet Union's subsidies to Cuba. At present, six factories on the
island managed to produce slightly more than 1.4 million tonnes of gray
cement last year, a figure well below the 5.2 million achieved in the
same period in neighboring Dominican Republic, a country with a
comparable population (about 11 million inhabitants), according to a
report from the Producers Association.
The government has assigned the Construction Materials Business Group
(GEICON) to produce cement in each of its variants, in addition to other
building materials such as aggregates, blocks, and flooring elements,
along with asbestos, fibroasphalt and roofing tiles.
The sales and marketing director of the group, Rubén Gómez Medina,
recently explained on national television that despite the sector's
recovery over the last five years, it still cannot meet demand.
The situation becomes complex for self-employed masons, and also for
those who are part of a non-agricultural cooperative. "As there is no
wholesale market, when we are contracted to do a job we have to place
responsibility for the materials on the customer," says Carlos Núñez,
who two years ago obtained a license for that occupation.
The entrepreneur remembers that at first they calculated a budget that
included everything, the plans, the materials and the labor. "Since we
started, the prices of aggregates have changed from one day to the next
and no one can tolerate that."
A bag of gray cement last year cost just over 6 CUC in an official
store. In the open markets the same bag is sold in national currency at
the equivalent of 7 CUC. The lack of supply has meant that in the
underground market, where it is also scarce, the price doubles and in
some areas reaches as high as 18 CUC.
Cement, along with pork or cooking oil, is one of those goods that set
the pace of the everyday economy. Its disappearance or shortage is a
direct blow to the population's quality of life.
Of the more than 23,000 homes that were built during 2015, less than
half were erected by the state. The rest were built by the private sector.
Now, for many, the only option is to buy gray cement on the black
market, or to sleep outside one of the open markets all night to see if
there's an early delivery.
On the outskirts of Fe del Valle Park, mixed among the dozens of people
who connect to the Internet in this popular Wi-Fi zone, resellers
abound. The site has a reputation for being a place where you can find
everything, "even 12 gauge electric cables for electrical
installations," a young man nicknamed El Chino proclaims without modesty.
So as not to be confused with a police informant or an inspector, the
buyer should pronounce the question in the most roundabout way. "How's
the cement coming along, pal?" El Chino arches his eyebrows and with a
precise professional air answers, " P350, which is for mounting plates,
goes out of here at between 10 and 12 CUC a bag and P250, for
plastering, goes for 9."
He pauses, as if he is sorry for what he is about to confess and adds,
"But right now there isn't any."
At the Ministry of Construction (MICONS) the officials questioned do not
clarify the reasons for the shortage, although several cooperative
members engaged in construction assert that part of the production of
the western zone has been sent to Guantánamo province to repair the
houses damaged by Hurricane Matthew.
A MICONS employee, who preferred anonymity, does not agree with that
explanation and insists that "since a group of measures to promote
construction by self-effort was implemented, there was a building
explosion that was not foreseen in the production plans for the
materials… Important hotels are being built and the supply to those
places can't be allowed to fail, so it has been prioritized," he adds.
The most recent version of the Foreign Investment Opportunities
Portfolio describes the objective of the authorities to "promote the
construction of infrastructure and industrial maintenance, mainly for
the nickel, oil and cement industries." But so far potential investors
are wary of putting their money in ventures on the Island.
"What has happened is that the cement industry is bottoming out and can
not withstand the pressure of the high demand," an engineer with 30
years of experience in the sector, who prefers to be called Osvaldo –
not his real name – to avoid reprisals for his statements, tells this
newspaper.
In 2016 the country's factories have had serious problems due to the
lack of maintenance but transportation has also burdened the
results. "We depend on the Cuban Railways to transfer part of the
material used in cement manufacture," Osvaldo said. "It's a chain of
inefficiencies that ends up breaking down at the weakest link: the
customer."
"No new equipment or parts are coming into the country. In many
factories, the furnace engines, the mechanical couplings and the mills
are badly damaged," he adds.
"This industry is the engine of prosperity, because it is the one that
allows houses to be built, people to have more amenities and there is
progress," Osvaldo proudly says. "But if we do not invest a good amount
of money we will continue as we are, between improvisations and defaults."
To illustrate his comment, the engineer shows the side wall of a newly
built house that is still waiting to be plastered. "It's because I
haven't been able to find the cement anywhere," justifies the owner.
Source: The Future Is Built With Cement … But There Isn't Any –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-future-is-built-with-cement-but-there-isnt-any/
In The Bank or Under the Mattress? Where Do Cubans Keep Their Money?
In The Bank or Under the Mattress? Where Do Cubans Keep Their Money?
14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 25 May 2017 — Finding a little bottle
filled with coins that her father hid in the patio was something that
happened to Eneida when she was young; now she's a retired and says that
financially she's "escachada, without a single peso in the bank." Her
family inherited an old mansion in the center of Santa Clara, and also
the determination not to put their savings in the hands of the state.
Each month, the pensioner goes to the nearest ATM, takes out the amount
of her retirement, equivalent to about $12, and stores it inside an old
coffee can. "I prefer to have it close because in most stores there are
problems paying with a magnetic card."
The Santa Claran also fears the authorities because, in her opinion,
"you never know when they will confiscate something."
Eneida has bad memories. Her father owned a bodega that was nationalized
during the 1968 Revolutionary Offensive, and before that the small
business owner had lost some of his savings with the paper currency swap
decreed by the government in 1961. "He kept in the house what little
they didn't take from him," recalls his daughter.
Since then more than half a century has passed, but many citizens are
still wary of putting their money in government-run institutions.
The banking system is made up of nine banks, 14 non-bank national
financial institutions, nine representative offices of foreign financial
institutions and one in the process of registration. For Eneida all
these entities are "the same dog but with a different collar."
In Havana, the Metropolitan Bank seeks to attract more customers at all
costs, but to the mistrust of banks is added the poor service at its
branches. The long lines outside the offices and the few economic
incentives to keep the money in their safes discourage savers.
The interest rates approved by the Central Bank determine that a
fixed-term deposit of 72 months accumulates 7% of its amount. However,
the dual currency system makes that figure ridiculous.
"I saved a third of my salary for five years to pay for my daughter's
fifteenth birthday party," says Teobaldo, a 47-year-old from Las Tunas
who transports goods from private markets to paladares and cafes. "I put
it in the bank and I had no problem, but I had the illusion that the
money would grow more."
Theobald came to have the equivalent of 1,800 CUC with which he paid for
the drink and the food of the party, as well as the cake and the cars to
make a tour of the city and the photos of the honoree. "I had to ask my
brother to send me more money from the United States for clothes,
flowers and the hiring of musicians," he adds.
As soon as his daughter's birthday came, the small entrepreneur took all
of his savings from the bank. "I did not want to set off the alarms," he
explains. In 1993, the government launched an offensive known as
Operation Potted Plant aimed at confiscating products and imprisoning
those who possessed "illicit money."
The crusade became a hunt against the new rich. "If you had a nice
house, air-conditioning and a well-painted façade, they would come down
on you," says Teobaldo. The Operation prosecuted two brothers for
"illicit enrichment." One of them raised pigs and the other sold gold
jewelry. After several years in prison they ended up emigrating.
Younger people see it differently. It is not mistrust that guides them
to not have bank accounts, but the economic precariousness of the
day-to-day. "Save money?" a young student at the University of
Pedagogical Sciences who works during non-school hours as a messenger to
distribute the Weekly Packet, asks with disbelief.
"Having savings is a thing for the rich," he says. Most of their
his live on what the parents give them or earn their own living, "but
there is not enough to save," he says.
Source: In The Bank or Under the Mattress? Where Do Cubans Keep Their
Money? – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/in-the-bank-or-under-the-mattress-where-do-cubans-keep-their-money/
14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 25 May 2017 — Finding a little bottle
filled with coins that her father hid in the patio was something that
happened to Eneida when she was young; now she's a retired and says that
financially she's "escachada, without a single peso in the bank." Her
family inherited an old mansion in the center of Santa Clara, and also
the determination not to put their savings in the hands of the state.
Each month, the pensioner goes to the nearest ATM, takes out the amount
of her retirement, equivalent to about $12, and stores it inside an old
coffee can. "I prefer to have it close because in most stores there are
problems paying with a magnetic card."
The Santa Claran also fears the authorities because, in her opinion,
"you never know when they will confiscate something."
Eneida has bad memories. Her father owned a bodega that was nationalized
during the 1968 Revolutionary Offensive, and before that the small
business owner had lost some of his savings with the paper currency swap
decreed by the government in 1961. "He kept in the house what little
they didn't take from him," recalls his daughter.
Since then more than half a century has passed, but many citizens are
still wary of putting their money in government-run institutions.
The banking system is made up of nine banks, 14 non-bank national
financial institutions, nine representative offices of foreign financial
institutions and one in the process of registration. For Eneida all
these entities are "the same dog but with a different collar."
In Havana, the Metropolitan Bank seeks to attract more customers at all
costs, but to the mistrust of banks is added the poor service at its
branches. The long lines outside the offices and the few economic
incentives to keep the money in their safes discourage savers.
The interest rates approved by the Central Bank determine that a
fixed-term deposit of 72 months accumulates 7% of its amount. However,
the dual currency system makes that figure ridiculous.
"I saved a third of my salary for five years to pay for my daughter's
fifteenth birthday party," says Teobaldo, a 47-year-old from Las Tunas
who transports goods from private markets to paladares and cafes. "I put
it in the bank and I had no problem, but I had the illusion that the
money would grow more."
Theobald came to have the equivalent of 1,800 CUC with which he paid for
the drink and the food of the party, as well as the cake and the cars to
make a tour of the city and the photos of the honoree. "I had to ask my
brother to send me more money from the United States for clothes,
flowers and the hiring of musicians," he adds.
As soon as his daughter's birthday came, the small entrepreneur took all
of his savings from the bank. "I did not want to set off the alarms," he
explains. In 1993, the government launched an offensive known as
Operation Potted Plant aimed at confiscating products and imprisoning
those who possessed "illicit money."
The crusade became a hunt against the new rich. "If you had a nice
house, air-conditioning and a well-painted façade, they would come down
on you," says Teobaldo. The Operation prosecuted two brothers for
"illicit enrichment." One of them raised pigs and the other sold gold
jewelry. After several years in prison they ended up emigrating.
Younger people see it differently. It is not mistrust that guides them
to not have bank accounts, but the economic precariousness of the
day-to-day. "Save money?" a young student at the University of
Pedagogical Sciences who works during non-school hours as a messenger to
distribute the Weekly Packet, asks with disbelief.
"Having savings is a thing for the rich," he says. Most of their
his live on what the parents give them or earn their own living, "but
there is not enough to save," he says.
Source: In The Bank or Under the Mattress? Where Do Cubans Keep Their
Money? – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/in-the-bank-or-under-the-mattress-where-do-cubans-keep-their-money/
Cuba Seeks To Use Tourism Boom To Boost Other Economic Areas
Cuba Seeks To Use Tourism Boom To Boost Other Economic Areas
14ymedio, Havana, 20 May 2017 — Cuba seeks to take advantage of the
recent rise of tourism, one of the locomotives of the island's economy,
to boost other areas and local services, in which the tourism sector
invested more than 310 million Cuban convertible pesos in 2016.
This figure represents approximately 64% of the operating expenses
incurred by state tourism companies, compared to 160 million CUC spent
on the import of food and other products from abroad, some 26% of total
expenditures, according to an article in the newspaper Juventud Rebelde.
Last year Cuba bought cutlery, crockery, linens, office supplies,
cleaning supplies, disposable products and furniture, as well as
preserved fruits and vegetables, sausages, dairy products, jams and
beers, given that domestic supplies could not meet the demand.
During a forum of the fourth National Business Fair, happening in Havana
and ongoing until Thursday, leaders of Cuban Light Industry said they
had already made "a group of micro-investments to expand capacities" and
offerings for the tourism sector.
The general director of the National Company of Select Fruits, Juan
Carlos Rodríguez, stated that by 2017 some 60 local companies will
guarantee 128 agricultural products and anticipated that they
will engage in more efficient agrotechnical practices to produce
prioritized and high demand crops such as fruits and vegetables.
To confront the boom of foreign visitors to the island, which this year
is expected to surpass the 4 million tourists received in 2016, the
country plans to build 224 new hotel facilities by 2030, said María del
Pilar Macías, director general of the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR).
The goal is to build 103,000 new rooms by that year, she explained.
In addition, MINTUR plans to refurnish and build more than 20 nautical
and marine clubs, an equal number of real estate properties to house
foreigners, and the same number of golf courses with almost a dozen
associated hotels, some of them already underway with companies from
Germany, China and Spain.
Source: Cuba Seeks To Use Tourism Boom To Boost Other Economic Areas –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-seeks-to-use-tourism-boom-to-boost-other-economic-areas/
14ymedio, Havana, 20 May 2017 — Cuba seeks to take advantage of the
recent rise of tourism, one of the locomotives of the island's economy,
to boost other areas and local services, in which the tourism sector
invested more than 310 million Cuban convertible pesos in 2016.
This figure represents approximately 64% of the operating expenses
incurred by state tourism companies, compared to 160 million CUC spent
on the import of food and other products from abroad, some 26% of total
expenditures, according to an article in the newspaper Juventud Rebelde.
Last year Cuba bought cutlery, crockery, linens, office supplies,
cleaning supplies, disposable products and furniture, as well as
preserved fruits and vegetables, sausages, dairy products, jams and
beers, given that domestic supplies could not meet the demand.
During a forum of the fourth National Business Fair, happening in Havana
and ongoing until Thursday, leaders of Cuban Light Industry said they
had already made "a group of micro-investments to expand capacities" and
offerings for the tourism sector.
The general director of the National Company of Select Fruits, Juan
Carlos Rodríguez, stated that by 2017 some 60 local companies will
guarantee 128 agricultural products and anticipated that they
will engage in more efficient agrotechnical practices to produce
prioritized and high demand crops such as fruits and vegetables.
To confront the boom of foreign visitors to the island, which this year
is expected to surpass the 4 million tourists received in 2016, the
country plans to build 224 new hotel facilities by 2030, said María del
Pilar Macías, director general of the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR).
The goal is to build 103,000 new rooms by that year, she explained.
In addition, MINTUR plans to refurnish and build more than 20 nautical
and marine clubs, an equal number of real estate properties to house
foreigners, and the same number of golf courses with almost a dozen
associated hotels, some of them already underway with companies from
Germany, China and Spain.
Source: Cuba Seeks To Use Tourism Boom To Boost Other Economic Areas –
Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-seeks-to-use-tourism-boom-to-boost-other-economic-areas/
Vending Machines for Alcoholic Beverages
Vending Machines for Alcoholic Beverages
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 23 May 2017 — The campaigns against
the consumption of alcohol have met an enemy. This is not an outspoken
advocate of Mojitos or Cuba Libres, but of the vending machines that
dispense national and imported beers simply at the introduction of a few
coins. Several of these devices are located in the central streets of
Havana, accessible to anyone regardless of age.
"Go get me a Heineken from the machine next door," a father said to his
little son from the doorway of a tenement on the Malecon. A few feet
away, without controls or supervision, stands the automaton that catches
kids' attention because it "spits cold cans," said one of them. No
employee of the nearby restaurant, La Abadía, seems to pay attention to
who uses the service.
A recent survey found that 36% of Cuban youth drink alcohol and 12%
drink and smoke. Among them an alarming number begin to consume tobacco
and alcohol between the ages of 11 and 13.
A common practice among parents is to encourage their sons, still
minors, to have a sip of rum because "it's a men's thing." For many
adolescents virility is measured in the amount of "lines" of alcohol
they can consume. A trend that these vending machines, without any
controls, will facilitate even more.
Across the pond, in Spain, the sale of beer through the use of vending
machines has been banned since 2010, according to a law enacted that
same year that limits the access of alcoholic beverages to minors.
Source: Vending Machines for Alcoholic Beverages – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/vending-machines-for-alcoholic-beverages/
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 23 May 2017 — The campaigns against
the consumption of alcohol have met an enemy. This is not an outspoken
advocate of Mojitos or Cuba Libres, but of the vending machines that
dispense national and imported beers simply at the introduction of a few
coins. Several of these devices are located in the central streets of
Havana, accessible to anyone regardless of age.
"Go get me a Heineken from the machine next door," a father said to his
little son from the doorway of a tenement on the Malecon. A few feet
away, without controls or supervision, stands the automaton that catches
kids' attention because it "spits cold cans," said one of them. No
employee of the nearby restaurant, La Abadía, seems to pay attention to
who uses the service.
A recent survey found that 36% of Cuban youth drink alcohol and 12%
drink and smoke. Among them an alarming number begin to consume tobacco
and alcohol between the ages of 11 and 13.
A common practice among parents is to encourage their sons, still
minors, to have a sip of rum because "it's a men's thing." For many
adolescents virility is measured in the amount of "lines" of alcohol
they can consume. A trend that these vending machines, without any
controls, will facilitate even more.
Across the pond, in Spain, the sale of beer through the use of vending
machines has been banned since 2010, according to a law enacted that
same year that limits the access of alcoholic beverages to minors.
Source: Vending Machines for Alcoholic Beverages – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/vending-machines-for-alcoholic-beverages/
Cuba Loses More Than Half of the Food Harvested, Reports a Spanish NGO
Cuba Loses More Than Half of the Food Harvested, Reports a Spanish NGO
14ymedio, Havana, 23 May 2017 — Agriculture in Cuba is among the lowest
performing in Latin America according to an evaluation published by the
non-governmental organization Mundubat, based in the Basque Country
(Spain). On the island, losses during harvest and after collection
represent 30% of total production, while during the distribution stages
they reach an additional 27%.
The report includes an evaluation carried out jointly between Mundubat
and Veterinarians Without Borders (VSF). Both organizations are part of
a cooperation agreement with Cuba, started in 2014 and funded mainly by
the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development.
Mundubat and VSF have been working on the island since 1993 in projects
that promote food sovereignty and gender equality. The entities work in
collaboration with official organizations, including the National
Association of Small Farmers, the Cuban Association of Agricultural and
Forestry Technicians, and the Cuban Association of Animal Production.
The report sees as a positive sign that "the cooperative sector already
has 80% of the land and produces more than 90% of the food produced in
the country," but notes that domestic production "only covers 20% of the
population's needs."
The biggest problems detected in food production on the island have
their origin in the "weakness of the cooperative institutional framework
in which agricultural production is organized," the report said.
The cooperatives lack an "internal evaluation of the efficiency and
ecological sustainability of the models of production," demonstrate a
"lack of knowledge of the regulatory frameworks," suffer deficiencies in
their facilities, and have "little involvement from their members," says
Mundubat.
The island suffers from "degraded soils with low levels of organic
matter, and high incidence of pests and diseases," along with "high
salinity, soil compaction and overgrazing." Invasive weeds and
contamination from manure aggravate the picture.
"The scarce investment in technology" limits "production even
more." Mundubat describes the final products offered for consumption as
being of "low quality." A situation that points to "poor processing in
the early stages of harvest," "deterioration of storage systems" and
"lack of experience in adding value to primary products."
The different productive units "do not meet the [island's] internal
demands" and the food supply is characterized by "the low and unstable
availability of food throughout the year" and fluctuating prices.
The report warns that women have "a low presence" in positions and
structures of management in the agricultural sector and "endure the
sexual division of labor." While "rights holders and producers are men,"
women occupy "agricultural labor posts" in agribusiness processing
chains and in retail distribution.
"The sector's returns are stagnant or have decreased slightly," warns
the report, which predicts that to the extent that agriculture "does not
increase its yields and exploit its productive potential, the economy
will have to assume significant expenditures to supply its domestic
demand," that is, for purchasing food from abroad.
Source: Cuba Loses More Than Half of the Food Harvested, Reports a
Spanish NGO – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-loses-more-than-half-of-the-food-harvested-reports-a-spanish-ngo/
14ymedio, Havana, 23 May 2017 — Agriculture in Cuba is among the lowest
performing in Latin America according to an evaluation published by the
non-governmental organization Mundubat, based in the Basque Country
(Spain). On the island, losses during harvest and after collection
represent 30% of total production, while during the distribution stages
they reach an additional 27%.
The report includes an evaluation carried out jointly between Mundubat
and Veterinarians Without Borders (VSF). Both organizations are part of
a cooperation agreement with Cuba, started in 2014 and funded mainly by
the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development.
Mundubat and VSF have been working on the island since 1993 in projects
that promote food sovereignty and gender equality. The entities work in
collaboration with official organizations, including the National
Association of Small Farmers, the Cuban Association of Agricultural and
Forestry Technicians, and the Cuban Association of Animal Production.
The report sees as a positive sign that "the cooperative sector already
has 80% of the land and produces more than 90% of the food produced in
the country," but notes that domestic production "only covers 20% of the
population's needs."
The biggest problems detected in food production on the island have
their origin in the "weakness of the cooperative institutional framework
in which agricultural production is organized," the report said.
The cooperatives lack an "internal evaluation of the efficiency and
ecological sustainability of the models of production," demonstrate a
"lack of knowledge of the regulatory frameworks," suffer deficiencies in
their facilities, and have "little involvement from their members," says
Mundubat.
The island suffers from "degraded soils with low levels of organic
matter, and high incidence of pests and diseases," along with "high
salinity, soil compaction and overgrazing." Invasive weeds and
contamination from manure aggravate the picture.
"The scarce investment in technology" limits "production even
more." Mundubat describes the final products offered for consumption as
being of "low quality." A situation that points to "poor processing in
the early stages of harvest," "deterioration of storage systems" and
"lack of experience in adding value to primary products."
The different productive units "do not meet the [island's] internal
demands" and the food supply is characterized by "the low and unstable
availability of food throughout the year" and fluctuating prices.
The report warns that women have "a low presence" in positions and
structures of management in the agricultural sector and "endure the
sexual division of labor." While "rights holders and producers are men,"
women occupy "agricultural labor posts" in agribusiness processing
chains and in retail distribution.
"The sector's returns are stagnant or have decreased slightly," warns
the report, which predicts that to the extent that agriculture "does not
increase its yields and exploit its productive potential, the economy
will have to assume significant expenditures to supply its domestic
demand," that is, for purchasing food from abroad.
Source: Cuba Loses More Than Half of the Food Harvested, Reports a
Spanish NGO – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuba-loses-more-than-half-of-the-food-harvested-reports-a-spanish-ngo/
Economic Crime, the Pitfall in the Path
Economic Crime, the Pitfall in the Path
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 22 May 2017 — The saleswoman
described her merchandise in a murmur: loggerhead turtle steaks, beef
and shrimp. The man salivated, but replied that he could not buy any of
those products, the most persecuted in the informal market. Every
opponent knows that the authorities would want to try him for an
"economic crime," and perhaps that saleswoman was just the bait.
The techniques used by an authoritarian government to control citizens
can be as varied as the fertile imagination of the repressors. Some are
designed in air-conditioned offices using studied methodologies, while
others arise on the fly, from seemingly fortuitous situations.
Are the economic constraints that we live under a calculated scenario to
keep Cubans locked in a cycle of survival? Do so many prohibitions seek
to leave us civically paralyzed, feeling ourselves guilty and with one
foot in a prison cell?
Beyond the conspiracy theories, officialdom has managed the informal
market as trap for the nonconforming, a framework for gathering
information about the deep Cuba, an element of blackmail against
its citizens and a lure to hunt down political opponents.
The Plaza of the Revolution has turned its bad economic management into
another way of keeping society in its fist. It knows that families will
do everything possible to put food on the table and will turn to the
underground networks to buy everything from their children's shoes to
the dollars that at the official currency exchanges are taxed at 10%.
In many cases it is just about waiting, like the spider who knows that
sooner or later the little insect will fall into its sticky
threads. State Security only has to wait for a dissident to buy coffee
"under the table" or to dare to have the bathroom retiled by an
unlicensed tile setter.
Although it is a practice that has been engaged in for many years, in
recent months there has been an increased tendency to accuse activists
of alleged economic infractions. They are charged with crimes that
ordinary Cubans commit every day under the patronizing eyes of the
police and with the complicity of officials or state
administrators. However, in the case of an opponent, the law has the
capacity to be narrower, more rigid and more strictly observed.
In all international forums, Raúl Castro's government boasts of not
having political prisoners and it supports this argument by severely,
but politically selectively, criminalizing such trivial matters as
keeping four sacks of cement or a few gallons of fuel at home, without
being able to show the papers that prove they were purchased in state
stores.
Journalist Henry Constantin is accused of "usurpation of legal capacity"
for working as a reporter in an independent publication, but dozens of
ex-military are appointed managers of tourist facilities without ever
having studied hotel management or business management. None of them
have been reprimanded for serving in a position for which they are not
formally qualified.
Karina Gálvez, a member of the Coexistence Studies Center, is being
prosecuted for alleged "tax evasion" during the purchase of her
home. However, before the new tax imposed on real estate transactions
came into force, thousands of Cubans thronged the notaries to complete
their paperwork under the previous tax laws, far removed from the real
estate market rates. Not one was sanctioned.
Eliécer Ávila, leader of the Somos+ Movement, had his home broken into
in a police raid and is charged with the offense of "illicit economic
activity." His "crime": possessing a laptop, rewritable discs and
several disposable razors. Unlike those thriving artists who import the
latest iMac from the market or "Daddy's kids" – children of the regime's
leaders – who have a satellite dish to watch Miami television, the
activist committed the offense of saying he wants to help change his
country.
The lesson is that no matter what degree of economic illegality
you commit, keep your mouth shut and don't criticize the government. It
is not the same to buy beef in the informal market when you pretend
ideological fealty to the regime, than it is to do the same when you
belong to an opposition movement.
The black bag can become a wall, a noose, a hidden trap for those who do
not applaud.
Source: Economic Crime, the Pitfall in the Path – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/economic-crime-the-pitfall-in-the-path/
14ymedio, Generation Y, Yoani Sanchez, 22 May 2017 — The saleswoman
described her merchandise in a murmur: loggerhead turtle steaks, beef
and shrimp. The man salivated, but replied that he could not buy any of
those products, the most persecuted in the informal market. Every
opponent knows that the authorities would want to try him for an
"economic crime," and perhaps that saleswoman was just the bait.
The techniques used by an authoritarian government to control citizens
can be as varied as the fertile imagination of the repressors. Some are
designed in air-conditioned offices using studied methodologies, while
others arise on the fly, from seemingly fortuitous situations.
Are the economic constraints that we live under a calculated scenario to
keep Cubans locked in a cycle of survival? Do so many prohibitions seek
to leave us civically paralyzed, feeling ourselves guilty and with one
foot in a prison cell?
Beyond the conspiracy theories, officialdom has managed the informal
market as trap for the nonconforming, a framework for gathering
information about the deep Cuba, an element of blackmail against
its citizens and a lure to hunt down political opponents.
The Plaza of the Revolution has turned its bad economic management into
another way of keeping society in its fist. It knows that families will
do everything possible to put food on the table and will turn to the
underground networks to buy everything from their children's shoes to
the dollars that at the official currency exchanges are taxed at 10%.
In many cases it is just about waiting, like the spider who knows that
sooner or later the little insect will fall into its sticky
threads. State Security only has to wait for a dissident to buy coffee
"under the table" or to dare to have the bathroom retiled by an
unlicensed tile setter.
Although it is a practice that has been engaged in for many years, in
recent months there has been an increased tendency to accuse activists
of alleged economic infractions. They are charged with crimes that
ordinary Cubans commit every day under the patronizing eyes of the
police and with the complicity of officials or state
administrators. However, in the case of an opponent, the law has the
capacity to be narrower, more rigid and more strictly observed.
In all international forums, Raúl Castro's government boasts of not
having political prisoners and it supports this argument by severely,
but politically selectively, criminalizing such trivial matters as
keeping four sacks of cement or a few gallons of fuel at home, without
being able to show the papers that prove they were purchased in state
stores.
Journalist Henry Constantin is accused of "usurpation of legal capacity"
for working as a reporter in an independent publication, but dozens of
ex-military are appointed managers of tourist facilities without ever
having studied hotel management or business management. None of them
have been reprimanded for serving in a position for which they are not
formally qualified.
Karina Gálvez, a member of the Coexistence Studies Center, is being
prosecuted for alleged "tax evasion" during the purchase of her
home. However, before the new tax imposed on real estate transactions
came into force, thousands of Cubans thronged the notaries to complete
their paperwork under the previous tax laws, far removed from the real
estate market rates. Not one was sanctioned.
Eliécer Ávila, leader of the Somos+ Movement, had his home broken into
in a police raid and is charged with the offense of "illicit economic
activity." His "crime": possessing a laptop, rewritable discs and
several disposable razors. Unlike those thriving artists who import the
latest iMac from the market or "Daddy's kids" – children of the regime's
leaders – who have a satellite dish to watch Miami television, the
activist committed the offense of saying he wants to help change his
country.
The lesson is that no matter what degree of economic illegality
you commit, keep your mouth shut and don't criticize the government. It
is not the same to buy beef in the informal market when you pretend
ideological fealty to the regime, than it is to do the same when you
belong to an opposition movement.
The black bag can become a wall, a noose, a hidden trap for those who do
not applaud.
Source: Economic Crime, the Pitfall in the Path – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/economic-crime-the-pitfall-in-the-path/
Getting Dressed in Cuba
Getting Dressed in Cuba / Iván García
Ivan Garcia, 15 May 2017 — The plastic drawers holding garments for men
and women give off the usual scent of things that have have been in
storage for a long time. We are in a government-run store that sells
used clothing on the Calzada de Monte, a busy thoroughfare lined with
state-owned retail establishments, privately owned coffee shops and
people clandestinely selling cheap Chinese-made merchandise.
At the back of the store, three plastic drawers of second-hand clothing
lie scattered on the floor. A variety of pants and shirts hang from
racks flanked by two mirrors with blackened edges.
The place is stifling. Sweat runs down the faces of employees, who try
to relieve the heat by fanning themselves with covers of old magazines
and pieces of cardboard.
A shirt with a dirty collar and no label costs eighty pesos, almost four
dollars. It is to thrift shops and flee markets like these that people
with low-incomes — typically state workers paid in the local currency
and those who do not receive remittances from overseas — come to shop.
"All the used clothing here is imported. The Ministry of Domestic Trade
cleans them but then the customers dirty them. They're clothes that
people from other countries have sold or donated to thrift stores. This
lot came from Canada. There were better items for sale but they're
already gone. What's left over is the stuff nobody wants," says the manager.
Yamil, a thirty-four-year-old primary school custodian often buys
second-hand clothing. "My salary of 300 pesos (the equivalent of
thirteen dollars) doesn't go far. I would like to dress more fashionably
but my buying options are limited to used clothes. Occasionally, a
friend will give me pants or a shirt. And a relative living in the US
sends me cheap stuff, which I give to my kids," he says.
The biggest problem in Cuba today is putting food on the table. Not
everyone can afford breakfast, lunch and dinner. Maintaining a
high-quality diet consumes 80% of a typical family's income. Sometimes
more. Even if you have enough money, you cannot always find the foods
you want or need.
Dressing children is a huge headache. Old people, the biggest losers of
Raul Castro's timid economic reforms, also face struggles. Just ask
Eusebio, an octogenarian retiree who sells magazines on Calzada del Cerro.
"At least it's almost never cold here. Otherwise, we'd be a pile of
stiffs. Most of us wear clothes that are twenty or more years old. Those
with families overseas manage to do alright. So do people with children
who are snappy dressers or managers with foreign companies. But the rest
of us are out of luck. The worst is when shoes wear out. I use shoes
that my newspaper customers give me. If they didn't, I would be walking
around in flip-flops," says Eusebio.
A standard monthly salary of twenty-six dollars makes it impossible for
the average Cuban to buy clothes. Families with children who do not
receive overseas remittances have to hope for a miracle, especially if
they have more than one child.
"Buying clothes and shoes is a nightmare," says Daniel, a civil
engineer. "Society is divided into those who have options and those who
don't. Students whose parents are well-off wear brand label shoes to
school. Everyone else has to make-do with low-quality shoes. Other kids
ridicule them. They made fun of my son because of the tennis shoes I
bought him. I try to encourage him and tell him to study hard so that
he'll have a career after he graduates. But he says, 'Dad, professionals
here are worse off than someone who works at a produce market.' It's a
mess."
In Cuba, stores cater to different markets. Those whose merchandise is
priced in Cuban pesos (CUP) usually offer standard or poor quality
clothing. Most stores, however, sell items of higher quality, which are
priced in hard currency in the form of convertible pesos (CUC) and carry
import duties of 240%.
TRD Caribe — one of a chain of businesses owned by GAESA, a conglomerate
run by the Cuban military, which controls 80% of the Cuban economy —
offers clothing purchased in bulk from wholesale markets in Panama Canal
Zone or cheap garments acquired from China.
The prices are predatory. Jeans of mediocre quality go for between
twenty and thirty CUC. "The quality of shoes and clothing is really bad.
It's a bunch of junk that they treat as though it were of the highest
quality," says a woman looking through a box of rubber flip-flops at a
shop on Acosta Avenue in southern Havana's Tenth of October neighborhood.
At one of the Palco stores or the well-known boutiques located in hotels
or shopping malls, better quality goods can be found but at sky-high prices.
A pair of Converse sneakers at the boutique in the Hotel Saratoga, where
the king of Morocco recently stayed, costs the equivalent of ninety
dollars. A pair of Gap jeans goes for more than one-hundred twenty.
"Only musicians, hookers, owners of successful private businesses or
people who get a lot of money from overseas can afford to shop in those
boutiques. Everyone else is screwed," say Luisa, a bank employee.
At the Mango store in the shopping mall of the Comodoro hotel, which is
run by a daughter-in-law of the late dictator Fidel Castro, a pair of
denim shorts can cost as much as ninety dollars.
For Cubans trying to dress fashionably, the underground market provides
the best options. "Most people buy small items from individuals. They
have better prices and a wider selection than state-run stores. They
also let you pay in installments," says Sheila, a college-prep student.
The government has prohibited sales of clothing by privately owned
stores since late 2013. But almost all private businesses take advantage
of the revolving door that operates between what is legal and what is
not, a mechanism that operates with the precision of a Swiss watch.
Thousands of people on the island and abroad are engaged in the garment
trade. Merchandise is usually purchased in Panama, Peru or Russia. In
some cases it is acquired by catalogue. But whether shopping in
state-owned or private businesses, getting dressed in Cuba is an expense
that is five times the average Cuban's monthly salary.
If you ask a Cuban what he sort of present he wants, he will give you
one of three answers: a smart phone, a pair of comfortable shoes or a
ticket out of the country.
Source: Getting Dressed in Cuba / Iván García – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/getting-dressed-in-cuba-ivn-garca/
Ivan Garcia, 15 May 2017 — The plastic drawers holding garments for men
and women give off the usual scent of things that have have been in
storage for a long time. We are in a government-run store that sells
used clothing on the Calzada de Monte, a busy thoroughfare lined with
state-owned retail establishments, privately owned coffee shops and
people clandestinely selling cheap Chinese-made merchandise.
At the back of the store, three plastic drawers of second-hand clothing
lie scattered on the floor. A variety of pants and shirts hang from
racks flanked by two mirrors with blackened edges.
The place is stifling. Sweat runs down the faces of employees, who try
to relieve the heat by fanning themselves with covers of old magazines
and pieces of cardboard.
A shirt with a dirty collar and no label costs eighty pesos, almost four
dollars. It is to thrift shops and flee markets like these that people
with low-incomes — typically state workers paid in the local currency
and those who do not receive remittances from overseas — come to shop.
"All the used clothing here is imported. The Ministry of Domestic Trade
cleans them but then the customers dirty them. They're clothes that
people from other countries have sold or donated to thrift stores. This
lot came from Canada. There were better items for sale but they're
already gone. What's left over is the stuff nobody wants," says the manager.
Yamil, a thirty-four-year-old primary school custodian often buys
second-hand clothing. "My salary of 300 pesos (the equivalent of
thirteen dollars) doesn't go far. I would like to dress more fashionably
but my buying options are limited to used clothes. Occasionally, a
friend will give me pants or a shirt. And a relative living in the US
sends me cheap stuff, which I give to my kids," he says.
The biggest problem in Cuba today is putting food on the table. Not
everyone can afford breakfast, lunch and dinner. Maintaining a
high-quality diet consumes 80% of a typical family's income. Sometimes
more. Even if you have enough money, you cannot always find the foods
you want or need.
Dressing children is a huge headache. Old people, the biggest losers of
Raul Castro's timid economic reforms, also face struggles. Just ask
Eusebio, an octogenarian retiree who sells magazines on Calzada del Cerro.
"At least it's almost never cold here. Otherwise, we'd be a pile of
stiffs. Most of us wear clothes that are twenty or more years old. Those
with families overseas manage to do alright. So do people with children
who are snappy dressers or managers with foreign companies. But the rest
of us are out of luck. The worst is when shoes wear out. I use shoes
that my newspaper customers give me. If they didn't, I would be walking
around in flip-flops," says Eusebio.
A standard monthly salary of twenty-six dollars makes it impossible for
the average Cuban to buy clothes. Families with children who do not
receive overseas remittances have to hope for a miracle, especially if
they have more than one child.
"Buying clothes and shoes is a nightmare," says Daniel, a civil
engineer. "Society is divided into those who have options and those who
don't. Students whose parents are well-off wear brand label shoes to
school. Everyone else has to make-do with low-quality shoes. Other kids
ridicule them. They made fun of my son because of the tennis shoes I
bought him. I try to encourage him and tell him to study hard so that
he'll have a career after he graduates. But he says, 'Dad, professionals
here are worse off than someone who works at a produce market.' It's a
mess."
In Cuba, stores cater to different markets. Those whose merchandise is
priced in Cuban pesos (CUP) usually offer standard or poor quality
clothing. Most stores, however, sell items of higher quality, which are
priced in hard currency in the form of convertible pesos (CUC) and carry
import duties of 240%.
TRD Caribe — one of a chain of businesses owned by GAESA, a conglomerate
run by the Cuban military, which controls 80% of the Cuban economy —
offers clothing purchased in bulk from wholesale markets in Panama Canal
Zone or cheap garments acquired from China.
The prices are predatory. Jeans of mediocre quality go for between
twenty and thirty CUC. "The quality of shoes and clothing is really bad.
It's a bunch of junk that they treat as though it were of the highest
quality," says a woman looking through a box of rubber flip-flops at a
shop on Acosta Avenue in southern Havana's Tenth of October neighborhood.
At one of the Palco stores or the well-known boutiques located in hotels
or shopping malls, better quality goods can be found but at sky-high prices.
A pair of Converse sneakers at the boutique in the Hotel Saratoga, where
the king of Morocco recently stayed, costs the equivalent of ninety
dollars. A pair of Gap jeans goes for more than one-hundred twenty.
"Only musicians, hookers, owners of successful private businesses or
people who get a lot of money from overseas can afford to shop in those
boutiques. Everyone else is screwed," say Luisa, a bank employee.
At the Mango store in the shopping mall of the Comodoro hotel, which is
run by a daughter-in-law of the late dictator Fidel Castro, a pair of
denim shorts can cost as much as ninety dollars.
For Cubans trying to dress fashionably, the underground market provides
the best options. "Most people buy small items from individuals. They
have better prices and a wider selection than state-run stores. They
also let you pay in installments," says Sheila, a college-prep student.
The government has prohibited sales of clothing by privately owned
stores since late 2013. But almost all private businesses take advantage
of the revolving door that operates between what is legal and what is
not, a mechanism that operates with the precision of a Swiss watch.
Thousands of people on the island and abroad are engaged in the garment
trade. Merchandise is usually purchased in Panama, Peru or Russia. In
some cases it is acquired by catalogue. But whether shopping in
state-owned or private businesses, getting dressed in Cuba is an expense
that is five times the average Cuban's monthly salary.
If you ask a Cuban what he sort of present he wants, he will give you
one of three answers: a smart phone, a pair of comfortable shoes or a
ticket out of the country.
Source: Getting Dressed in Cuba / Iván García – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/getting-dressed-in-cuba-ivn-garca/
Cuba’s Fake Transport Co-ops
Cuba's Fake Transport Co-ops
14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Miami, 18 May 2017 — In an effort to persuade
Cubans and the international left that "Cuba is building socialism,"
while seeking to convince the world that Castroism is abandoning State
Totalitarianism and also trying to counteract the relative independence
achieved by the so-called boteros, or boatmen, as independent taxi
drivers are known, the state's effort to "update the economic model"
includes the introduction of what they are calling Taxi Rutero, offering
rides at 5 Cuban pesos per trip.
They are not cooperatives, in their strict sense, because they do not
arise from the spontaneous idea of workers pooling their capital and
resources to organize production collectively and distribute
profits. Rather, they are state-owned leasing companies, called
cooperatives, that hire vehicles to the drivers who are given some
advantages, such as low gasoline or oil prices, and who are paid daily
but must hand over everything they collect. More or less what they have
been doing with the urban buses in the capital lately.
Now, faced with the state's inability to deal with the boteros, it
decides to invent "taxi cooperatives" which are nothing more than a
version of the bus cooperatives, featuring cars
Now, the state is confronting its inability to deal with the boteros
who, faced with inflation generated by bureaucratic policies and their
problems getting fuel, decided to raise prices and launched a kind of
strike when the state imposed a price cap. So, instead of negotiating
with them and finding solutions that solve the problem for the good of
everyone, the state decides to invent "taxi cooperatives" which are
nothing more than a version of the bus cooperatives, featuring cars.
The system is more or less the same. In state cars, with state gasoline
and state spare parts, a car is rented to a strike-breaker – the new
scabs – for one thousand Cuban pesos a day, and then they are paid 800
Cuban pesos a month; an almost unbelievable arrangement that could only
have been invented by the "state cooperatives."
The cutting edge of the new "cooperatives" is clearly directed against
the boteros, setting a price of 15 pesos for a ride that the private
drivers charge 20 to 25 Cuban pesos for.
This is not a solution to the transportation problem, this is an attempt
to crush the boteros, because Cuba's intolerant state system does not
know how to and has no interest in negotiating with people, with the
workers, it only knows how to impose.
Something similar has been done with service "cooperatives," such as
cafes, shoe repairers, household appliance repairers and others, in old
unsustainable state entities. In practice, they have leased the premises
and equipment, without ever being offered the property and with the
subsequent activities subjected to countless state controls. It's a
lie. There is nothing "cooperative" about it.
It has already become common for the Castro's Stalinist and
antisocialist state to label their para-state inventions cooperatives.
These misrepresentations come from the early years. Then, under the
personal leadership of Fidel Castro, the sugar cane cooperatives were
created, without giving them the land. The system of sugarcane
cooperatives showed signs of increasing independence, controlling their
own finances, creating the village shops, and forcing the Sugar Industry
Ministry to pay for the cane they cut, plus they had their own militias
and bought the machinery they needed with their own money.
When Carlos Rafael Rodríguez was appointed president of National
Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA) in February 1962, he dissolved the
sugarcane cooperatives in the middle of that year's harvest, to create
"farms for the people," and thus to convert those in the cooperatives
into wage laborers. He handed over their lands to Che's Sugar Ministry
(MINAZ), and thereby destroyed the monetary-mercantile relationship
between agriculture and the sugar industry.
Later, when it became clear that the agricultural farms were not working
with wage labor, they invented the Basic Units of Cooperative
Production, UBPC, cooperatives in name only because the workers
continued to receive salaries from the State. These salaries were linked
only to meeting the "Productive Plans," not to the actual market
results, and the plans were developed by the state with the requirement
that they deliver the production the plans "committed" them to, to a
collection system where the prices were set by the buyer (i.e. the
state). A complete farce.
Sometimes we give the socialists the benefit of the doubt. Has this
arbitrary management of the concept of cooperativism led us to the point
where its manipulators have no idea what a cooperative is? Do they do it
to try to fool the uneducated politicians who abound everywhere? Or is
it part of a plan to discredit the original socialist idea of Karl
Marx's self-managing cooperativism?
Whatever the answer is, it is, at the very least, detestable.
Source: Cuba's Fake Transport Co-ops – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cubas-fake-transport-co-ops/
14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Miami, 18 May 2017 — In an effort to persuade
Cubans and the international left that "Cuba is building socialism,"
while seeking to convince the world that Castroism is abandoning State
Totalitarianism and also trying to counteract the relative independence
achieved by the so-called boteros, or boatmen, as independent taxi
drivers are known, the state's effort to "update the economic model"
includes the introduction of what they are calling Taxi Rutero, offering
rides at 5 Cuban pesos per trip.
They are not cooperatives, in their strict sense, because they do not
arise from the spontaneous idea of workers pooling their capital and
resources to organize production collectively and distribute
profits. Rather, they are state-owned leasing companies, called
cooperatives, that hire vehicles to the drivers who are given some
advantages, such as low gasoline or oil prices, and who are paid daily
but must hand over everything they collect. More or less what they have
been doing with the urban buses in the capital lately.
Now, faced with the state's inability to deal with the boteros, it
decides to invent "taxi cooperatives" which are nothing more than a
version of the bus cooperatives, featuring cars
Now, the state is confronting its inability to deal with the boteros
who, faced with inflation generated by bureaucratic policies and their
problems getting fuel, decided to raise prices and launched a kind of
strike when the state imposed a price cap. So, instead of negotiating
with them and finding solutions that solve the problem for the good of
everyone, the state decides to invent "taxi cooperatives" which are
nothing more than a version of the bus cooperatives, featuring cars.
The system is more or less the same. In state cars, with state gasoline
and state spare parts, a car is rented to a strike-breaker – the new
scabs – for one thousand Cuban pesos a day, and then they are paid 800
Cuban pesos a month; an almost unbelievable arrangement that could only
have been invented by the "state cooperatives."
The cutting edge of the new "cooperatives" is clearly directed against
the boteros, setting a price of 15 pesos for a ride that the private
drivers charge 20 to 25 Cuban pesos for.
This is not a solution to the transportation problem, this is an attempt
to crush the boteros, because Cuba's intolerant state system does not
know how to and has no interest in negotiating with people, with the
workers, it only knows how to impose.
Something similar has been done with service "cooperatives," such as
cafes, shoe repairers, household appliance repairers and others, in old
unsustainable state entities. In practice, they have leased the premises
and equipment, without ever being offered the property and with the
subsequent activities subjected to countless state controls. It's a
lie. There is nothing "cooperative" about it.
It has already become common for the Castro's Stalinist and
antisocialist state to label their para-state inventions cooperatives.
These misrepresentations come from the early years. Then, under the
personal leadership of Fidel Castro, the sugar cane cooperatives were
created, without giving them the land. The system of sugarcane
cooperatives showed signs of increasing independence, controlling their
own finances, creating the village shops, and forcing the Sugar Industry
Ministry to pay for the cane they cut, plus they had their own militias
and bought the machinery they needed with their own money.
When Carlos Rafael Rodríguez was appointed president of National
Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA) in February 1962, he dissolved the
sugarcane cooperatives in the middle of that year's harvest, to create
"farms for the people," and thus to convert those in the cooperatives
into wage laborers. He handed over their lands to Che's Sugar Ministry
(MINAZ), and thereby destroyed the monetary-mercantile relationship
between agriculture and the sugar industry.
Later, when it became clear that the agricultural farms were not working
with wage labor, they invented the Basic Units of Cooperative
Production, UBPC, cooperatives in name only because the workers
continued to receive salaries from the State. These salaries were linked
only to meeting the "Productive Plans," not to the actual market
results, and the plans were developed by the state with the requirement
that they deliver the production the plans "committed" them to, to a
collection system where the prices were set by the buyer (i.e. the
state). A complete farce.
Sometimes we give the socialists the benefit of the doubt. Has this
arbitrary management of the concept of cooperativism led us to the point
where its manipulators have no idea what a cooperative is? Do they do it
to try to fool the uneducated politicians who abound everywhere? Or is
it part of a plan to discredit the original socialist idea of Karl
Marx's self-managing cooperativism?
Whatever the answer is, it is, at the very least, detestable.
Source: Cuba's Fake Transport Co-ops – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cubas-fake-transport-co-ops/
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